Goa woke up to horror in Arpora – 23 lives reduced to ashes inside a nightclub that should never have been allowed to operate in the first place. Twenty-three families broken. A State shaken. And a truth staring us in the face: this was not “culpable homicide not amounting to murder.” This was murder.
Let’s stop sugarcoating the crime. Let’s stop calling it a tragedy. And let’s stop pretending this was a freak incident no one could have predicted. What happened at the nightclub Birch was the direct result of choices made by people who knew exactly what they were doing – choices driven by greed, arrogance, and the belief that Goa’s laws can be bent, bypassed, or bought.
The Luthra brothers, owners of Birch, permitted fireworks inside a closed venue constructed with wooden structures and decorated with dried grass to give a “shack feel.” Anyone with even a sliver of common sense would know this was an inferno waiting to erupt. Add to that the complete absence of mandatory fire-safety norms – no clearances, no emergency systems, no compliance. Just an illegal playground built on risk, wrapped in glamour, and marketed to the public as entertainment.
When a venue is deliberately designed as a tinderbox, and when the predictable happens – flames, smoke, panic, death – you don’t call it negligence. You call it what it is: murder.
There is another layer to this story – a darker one, more familiar to Goans than we’d like to admit. Because Birch did not operate in secret. It did not hide behind a closed gate. It stood proudly, promoted openly, and ran night after night right under the nose of the State.
So the question Goa must boldly ask is this:
Who in the administration enabled this illegality?
Who allowed a nightclub without basic license and fire protection to run freely?
Who turned a blind eye?
Who looked the other way after “inspections”?
Who ensured the file moved smoothly, quietly, conveniently?
Every official who failed to enforce the law – whether by corruption, complacency, or cowardice – is complicit. And complicity in a situation that led to mass death is nothing short of murder.
We’ve seen this script before. Committees formed. Enquiries announced. FIRs filed with softened charges. Blame pushed around like a beach ball. And eventually, accountability evaporates into the Goan humidity.
Not this time.
If we cannot demand justice for 23 innocent lives, then what does the word justice even mean in Goa?
What happened at Arpora must be investigated as murder, not as a diluted, bureaucratically comfortable classification meant to shield the powerful. The Luthra brothers must be booked for murder. The management must be booked for murder. And every government official who enabled this lawlessness must be booked for murder.
Anything less is not justice – it is betrayal.
Chief Minister Dr. Pramod Sawant must now decide which side of history he wants to stand on. Goa does not need sympathy statements. Goa does not need another round of paperwork. Goa needs a fearless, uncompromising pursuit of truth.
Not to make headlines. Not to calm public anger. But because protecting human life is the first duty of governance – and because 23 lives cannot disappear into silence.
This moment will test leadership. It will test integrity. It will test whether Goa still believes that the law is supreme, or whether it will once again surrender to the powerful forces that think they’re untouchable.
This is not just about one nightclub. This is about the culture of impunity that has taken deep root in Goa’s nightlife economy – a parallel world where safety, legality, and accountability are optional, negotiable, or outright ignored.
Arpora must become the moment Goa says “Enough.”
Enough of illegal venues.
Enough of blind-eye governance.
Enough of letting greed outweigh human life.
Because this was not an accident.
This was not fate.
This was not God’s will.
This was murder – and murder demands consequences.
For the sake of the 23 souls who burned in that inferno, for the families mourning them, and for the future of every Goan who steps into a public venue believing the State will protect them, we must speak the truth clearly, loudly, and relentlessly:
Arpora was murder. And Goa must ensure justice is done.
