A devastating fire at Birch by Romeo Lane, a popular nightclub-restaurant in Arpora, Goa, has triggered a storm of grief, accountability debates, and a sweeping crackdown on regulatory violations along the state’s famed coastal belt. The blaze, which broke out on Sunday and claimed 25 lives, has placed the spotlight squarely on the club’s owner, Saurabh Luthra, and his brother, Gaurav, even as both remain untraceable amid police pursuit and public outrage.

Hours after police issued lookout notices and dispatched teams to Delhi to track the brothers, Saurabh Luthra, 39, broke his silence—not in person, but on Instagram. In a sombre statement, he described the catastrophe as “irreparable sorrow” and expressed condolences to the families of the victims and those injured. His post came even as the Goa Police confirmed that both brothers had been booked for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, among several other charges filed in an FIR a day earlier.

The swift legal action reflects the gravity of the situation, but it also opens up a deeper conversation about sustained violations by commercial establishments along Goa’s northern coastline. Birch by Romeo Lane, a venture under the fast-growing Romeo Lane hospitality brand, is only the latest example in a pattern of alleged illegal construction, environmental breaches, regulatory gaps, and selective enforcement that have plagued the state’s tourist zones for years.

Saurabh Luthra’s journey from a computer engineer to a hospitality entrepreneur has been striking. Beginning in Delhi’s Hudson Lane with Mama’s Buoi and later Dramebaaz and Romeo Lane, he expanded rapidly. Today, Romeo Lane operates across 37 Indian cities—including major urban centres like Delhi, Dehradun, Noida, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Lucknow, and Ludhiana—and has ventured abroad with outlets in Dubai and London, with New York reportedly next in line. The rapid growth of his brand, however, has not unfolded without controversy, especially when it comes to the Goa operations.

Locals and long-time observers argue that the tragedy at Arpora was years in the making. According to Jawish Moniz, a guesthouse operator near Vagator beach, violations along the north Goa coastal belt are rampant and often ignored until too late. Moniz notes that between Ozrant, Vagator, Anjuna, and Chapora—four villages that form the busiest stretch of the tourist circuit—there are dozens of clubs and restaurants, many of them allegedly constructed in violation of the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) guidelines.

He describes a recurring pattern: businesses obtain temporary hut permissions, which legally allow only simple, removable structures, but then construct sprawling, permanent establishments in their place. Action from authorities often comes only at the end of the tourist season, by which time the primary commercial benefits have already been reaped. “By the time the authorities act, the tourist season is over,” Moniz says.

Romeo Lane itself has a documented history of such conflicts. The Vagator outlet, for instance, was demolished on at least two separate occasions for CRZ violations, according to Moniz. In December 2024, the Goa State Pollution Control Board issued notices to Romeo Lane and six other clubs for violating sound pollution norms. A month later, the Bombay High Court at Goa cited the club for playing music until 5 a.m., well past the permissible limits. These violations, however, rarely drew significant consequences: the management would appear through representatives, issue undertakings, and business would resume as usual.

The roots of this permissiveness were explored sharply in earlier High Court observations. In a 2022 order, Justices M.S. Sonak and Bharat Deshpande warned that illegal and unauthorised structures were routinely erected during tourist season in CRZ and No Development Zones (NDZ), only for the authorities to issue notices towards the season’s end or the onset of monsoon. The process of adjudicating show-cause notices would then stretch beyond the season, enabling violators to profit from their operations without meaningful deterrence. Their words were scathing: “This is an extremely sorry state of affairs,” they wrote, emphasising how commercial exploitation was taking precedence over environmental and legal safeguards.

That year, court scrutiny uncovered 275 illegal structures in Anjuna alone, but only around a dozen were ultimately demolished. Critics argue that this disparity between violations found and action taken illustrates a systemic failure rather than isolated negligence.

The fire has now prompted urgent and overdue intervention. On Sunday, district administration officials sealed all three Romeo Lane properties in Goa. The state government suspended Siddhi Halarnkar, the former director of Panchayats, who had granted a stay on a demolition order earlier issued by the local village panchayat. The suspension underscores the ongoing examination of whether the club’s permits were improperly granted or if procedural safeguards were bypassed.

Goa Police have also summoned several government officials involved in issuing various licences and clearances to the establishments. Their statements are expected to be crucial in determining whether the tragedy was a result of technical lapses, regulatory oversight, coordinated evasion, or a combination of these factors.

For families of the victims, however, institutional inquiries offer only limited solace. Many have questioned how a venue with prior violations and pending cases was allowed to operate in the first place. The tragedy has reopened debates around fire safety, emergency preparedness, building approvals, and the broader governance of Goa’s nightlife-driven economy.

As the police continue to search for the Luthra brothers, the tragedy at Birch by Romeo Lane now stands as a grim emblem of a long-standing cycle: illegal construction, delayed enforcement, and nightclubs operating in grey zones until disaster strikes. While state authorities have begun tightening the net, many fear that unless systemic reforms follow, Goa’s nightlife industry will remain trapped in a deadly loop of profit-over-safety.

For now, the nightclub’s owner has called it “irreparable sorrow”. For the families who lost loved ones, and for a state grappling with both commercial pressures and environmental sensitivities, the path to healing and accountability is only beginning.