PANAJI: In a major tragedy ahead of the peak tourist season, 25 people were killed, including five tourists, after an inferno tore through a popular nightclub, Birch by Romeo Lane, at Arpora, late on Saturday night. Four of the deceased were from the same family in Delhi, and three of them were women, while one tourist was from Karnataka. The fire — the deadliest in Goa’s history — also injured six persons, five of whom are undergoing treatment at GMC.Goa police have registered an FIR against the owners of the club, Saurabh Luthra and Gaurav Luthra, and others for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.CM Pramod Sawant said that Goa police have issued an arrest warrant, and that a police team has already left for Delhi to arrest the accused.

Meanwhile, DGP Alok Kumar said that police have arrested four staffers of the club — chief general manager Rajiv Modak, 49, and gate manager Priyanshu Thakur, 32, both from Delhi; and bar manager Rajveer Singhania, 32, and general manager Vivek Singh, 27, both from UP.When the incident took place at around 11.45pm, there were over 150 tourists attending a Saturday night event at the club. A preliminary investigation conducted by Goa police and the fire department concluded that the fire broke out after electric firecrackers hit the wooden ceiling during the event.When the fire first sparked from the ceiling, the performers stopped the event, and within minutes, tourists made a dash for their lives. While most of them were able to leave the club, those who were trapped inside due to the flames tried to escape by entering the basement area through a small staircase when the exit door caught fire.Sawant said that there was no blast at the club and that electric firecrackers were the cause of the fire.“Due to the wooden ceiling, the fire spread quickly inside the club,” he said.A total of 23 people died in the basement due to suffocation, and when police and fire personnel reached there after dousing the fire, they were shocked to see bodies lying over each other. The basement of the club did not have any ventilation, and this caused the people to suffocate.It took two hours to remove the bodies from the basement and shift them to the hospital. Police recovered two charred bodies lying on the staircase.Sawant said that except for the five tourists who died in the fire, the rest of the deceased were employees of the club from Assam, Bengal, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Nepal. Postmortem examinations have been conducted on 17 bodies, and five have been handed over to their family members for final rites.State govt on Sunday also sealed Romeo Lane at Vagator, a nightclub belonging to the same owners, after the mamlatdar found that they don’t have adequate fire safety measures at the nightclub.Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that Rs 2 lakh ex gratia would be given to the next of kin of each of the deceased, and that the injured would be given Rs 50,000. Sawant also announced an ex gratia amount of Rs 5 lakh to the next of kin of the deceased and Rs 50,000 for the injured.