Panaji, 7 Dec

Weekend revelry turned into a horrific tragedy as a massive fire tore through a nightclub in North Goa after midnight on Sunday, claiming 25 lives and leaving six persons injured.

Most of the deaths were caused by suffocation, as the victims got trapped on the ground floor of `Birch by Romeo Lane' nightclub at Arpora, 25 km from Panaji, a fire official said.

The construction was unauthorised but the demolition notice served to the club had been stayed by a higher authority, claimed a village official, as Chief Minister Pramod Sawant vowed action against officials who allowed it to operate despite the violation of safety norms.

The deceased included four tourists and 14 staff members, while the identity of the remaining seven was yet to be established, the police said.

President Droupadi Murmu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, among others, expressed grief over the loss of lives.

A preliminary inquiry indicated that the fire started on the first floor, and due to congestion and small doors, customers could not move out. "Some of them rushed to the ground floor and got trapped there," CM Sawant said.

“We will take action against the club management and also against the officials who allowed it to operate despite flouting safety norms,” Sawant said. A First Information Report (FIR) was registered against the owner and general manager of the nightclub and they would be arrested, he added.

“This is an unfortunate incident during the peak tourist season in the coastal state,” the CM said, adding, “We will conduct a detailed inquiry into the incident by a magistrate and stringent action will be taken against the guilty.”

While the State police initially said the blaze occurred due to a cylinder blast, some eyewitnesses claimed the fire started on the club's first floor where tourists were dancing.

At least 100 persons were on the dance floor when the fire broke out, and in an attempt to escape, some of them ran downstairs to the kitchen where they got trapped along with the staff, Fatima Shaikh, a tourist from Hyderabad, told PTI.

"There was a sudden commotion as the flames started erupting. We rushed out of the club only to see that the entire structure was up in flames," she said.

The nightclub was jam-packed as it was the weekend, she said.

In no time, the entire club was engulfed flames. “There was a temporary construction made up of palm leaves which easily caught fire,” said Shaikh.

The nightclub is situated in the backwaters of the Arpora river and has a narrow entry and exit. There was no access for the fire brigades to the club because of the narrow lanes and their tankers had to be parked about 400 metres away from the spot.

A senior officer from the Fire and Emergency Services told PTI that the narrow access made it difficult to reach the spot, which in turn made controlling the blaze a challenging task.

Most of the deaths were caused by suffocation as the victims remained trapped on the ground floor, he said.

Arpora-Nagoa panchayat Sarpanch Roshan Redkar said the club was run by Saurav Luthra, who had a dispute with his partner.

“There was a dispute between them and they had filed a complaint against each other with the panchayat. We had inspected the premises and found that they did not have the permission to construct the club,” he said.

The panchayat had issued a demolition notice, which was stayed by the officials of the Directorate of Panchayats, Redkar said.

Distraught relatives and friends of the victims gathered outside the morgue of the Goa Medical College and Hospital, anxiously awaiting information about their loved ones.

Some of them, hailing from a village in Jharkhand, said they would not accept the bodies and demanded that the nightclub owner arrange for the mortal remains to be transported back home.

Four persons from their village worked as helpers and cooks at the nightclub, they said.

Another group of five persons from Assam was also seen sitting outside the morgue. While they refused to talk to the media, one of them claimed that some of the fire victims were their friends.

A senior police official said that it will take a day to identify all the bodies and conduct the postmortem, only after which the mortal remains will be handed over to their relatives.

The Goa Church expressed grief over the loss of lives in the incident.

The State Aam Aadmi Party unit claimed the Sawant government has lost the "moral right" to stay in power, as it had failed to control the administration.

AAP Goa president Amit Palekar, in a post on X, questioned why the government had not taken any action against the nightclub, which had allegedly not followed norms despite the issue being raised in the state assembly.