Nightclub Fire Exposes How Pramod Sawant Govt Turned Goa Into an Unregulated Party Destination

Panaji: The fire that tore into the Birch by Romeo Lane nightclub killing 25 people on the night of December 6 has exposed systemic failures on part of the administration that point to the inescapable conclusion of pervasive corruption at every level of government in Goa.

So far six people have been arrested, including Ajay Gupta, a business partner of the club owner brothers, Saurabh and Gaurav Luthra. Three local officials were also suspended.

The Luthra brothers, who have been detained at the Bangkok immigration detention centre after they fled to Thailand even as the blaze was raging through the club, are expected to be deported to India soon.

Post the fire tragedy, the state’s administration has been put on overdrive to vet licences and safety measures in bars, restaurants and night spots along the tourist coast.

“All nightclubs without proper permissions should be shut down. The BJP has demanded strong action against the culprits. This is ‘dev bhumi’ [holy land] not ‘bhog bhumi’ [land of vices],’’ the Times of India quoted BJP state president Damu Naik as having said.

Calangute alone has 17 nightclubs, all of them running with just a restaurant licence, which doesn’t allow them to stay open past 11 pm, sarpanch Joseph Sequeira told The Wire.

They’ve now been issued show-cause notices. Among them is Ricky’s, a nightspot owned by Nilesh Ramnath Naik, a relative of the BJP's Goa chief.

The reason no nightclub has a club licence is because no such licence exists, says BJP Calangute MLA Michael Lobo. Some of them apply for a special excise licence that allows them to keep the bar running till 5 am.

This obviously doesn’t cover safety, noise pollution or public disturbance, which has been a sore point for years with local residents in Anjuna and other tourist spots, some of whom have been compelled to battle the issue in the courts, with the police turning a deaf ear to their complaints and the government looking away.

Gaurav (left) and Saurabh (right) Luthra with a Thai official. Photos: PTI.

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Lobo has been prodding chief minister Pramod Sawant to come up with a special classification licence for nightclubs that would be issued by the Entertainment Society of Goa, but suggestion has been persistently blocked by tourism minister Rohan Khaunte, “who wants the licensing authority to come under his department”, he says.

“Post-COVID, the North Goa coast has gone completely out of control,” says a senior member of the Travel and Tourism Association of Goa who wished not to be identified for fear of reprisal against his hotel business.

The blame, he says, must rest squarely with the chief minister, who has been either a pawn or willing collaborator in the illegalities on the tourist coast. “Industry players feel huge leeway is being given to parties from outside the state who carry some influence with BJP bigwigs in Delhi.”

Earlier this month, the local paper The Goan reported that Bastian Riviera, a new 1.5-acre property built on the Morjim (North Goa) backwaters, continues to operate in the no-development zone despite a demolition order dated September 7 issued by the Bardez deputy collector to raze the illegal structures.

A bar-restaurant and concrete swimming pool have been allowed to function on the Chapora riverbank in Morjim, blocking traditional fishing access.

The petition was filed by two local fishermen, who told the newspaper that the government’s silence and inaction on the demolition order gave serious reason to suspect that  “influential persons and powerful interests” were shielding the project.

Bastian Riviera, which claims to blend influences from Egypt, Mykonos and Dubai, is owned by Bollywood actors Shilpa Shetty and Kriti Sanon. The project has already drawn rave reviews from the entertainment media.

Earlier this week, the government was compelled to seal the Goya nightclub in Anjuna, when the authorities discovered it has come up on agricultural land with shady permissions, even as the club ran for months.

On Saturday it also sealed Cafe CO2, another nightclub in Ozrant-Vagator, for operating without the mandatory no-objection certificate from the fire department, and other structural concerns.

The Calangute MLA, who seems to have developed a latent conscience after the loss of so many lives in the Romeo Lane blaze, says that “the North Goa coast has become a free for all; this must be corrected”.

Lobo, by his own admission, owns five hotels and five restaurants spread out from Calangute to Anjuna. Yet he himself has resisted compliance with a 2018 high court order to demolish a large portion (30 rooms along with the reception) of his Nazri Resort in Calangute built in a protected zone. The Supreme Court too dismissed his appeal last year.

“What have we come to, that we need to approach the high court to get an MLA to comply with a Supreme Court order?” asks lawyer Rohit Bras De Sa, who is counsel for several public interest litigations. He despairs that the “real culprits” (he names several ministers and MLAs) who have enabled the culture of corruption that runs through the veins of all levels of governance in Goa will never be nailed, even after the fire tragedy.

A fire-struck Birch by Romeo Lane is seen across an expanse of water in Arpora, Goa on December 7, 2025. Photo: AP/PTI.

“Twenty-five people have died, most of them poor labourers who came to Goa to earn a living. In a week’s time the outrage will dissipate, nobody will care that they’ve died. Their lives are worth a pittance, a mere Rs 5 lakh each [the Goa government’s compensation],” De Sa says. He sees the current FIRs and criminal cases ending in acquittals after long-drawn legal battles.

De Sa, who represents the petitioners who had alerted the government to the Birch club’s illegalities through a legal notice in early November, says the club operated for two years without the mandatory completion order or occupancy certificate. It was served a demolition order by the Arpora panchayat in April 2024, which was stayed by the director of panchayats.

Lobo, whose constituency has earned the sobriquet of ‘republic of Calangute’ for being a law unto itself, disputes the claim that the Arpora panchayat has clean hands and had acted responsibly in the Romeo Lane case.

He says 33 no-objection certificates were granted to the illegal club under a single survey number, including one for repairs (read construction) and water and electricity connections. All of them were signed by sarpanch Roshan Redkar when they should have been signed by the panchayat’s secretary. The demolition order was a mere eyewash and the panchayat representatives failed to show up for the hearings before the director.

The three-tier system has given panchayats immense powers, putting them beyond the control of the MLA, Lobo claims. “Do you know how corrupt the panchayats have become?” he asks. A few of them do good work, but most “make huge money”. He should know, he points out, he’s a contractor.

“People who once lived in patra [aluminium] houses today have palatial bungalows,” he says of the sarpanch who only months ago was his staunch political supporter.

So far, the BJP has sought to insulate the chief minister and his ministers from all blame for the lapses that led to the nightclub deaths. Yet exactly four months prior, on August 6, the party’s own MLA Sankalp Amonkar raised a warning in the state legislative assembly about the “massive illegal constructions” in a highly ecologically sensitive area in Arpora village.

Despite the demolition notice by the village panchayat in April 2024, the authority had failed to act. What steps did his government intend to take? his zero hour mention asked.

The zero hour warning received zero attention from either Sawant or panchayat minister Mauvin Godinho, or anyone else in the Goa government.

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