The Central Bureau of Investigation is tightening the noose around Delhi-based businessmen Saurabh and Gaurav Luthra, who fled to Phuket within hours of a fatal nightclub fire in North Goa that killed 25 people.
The agency has formally approached Interpol for blue notices, hoping to prevent the duo from slipping into yet another jurisdiction.
The CBI is “vehemently pursuing with Lyon-based Interpol to quickly issue blue notices against Luthras so that they don’t flee to some other country,” per the Hindustan Times.
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What is a blue notice actually?
So, a blue notice is essentially the global policing system’s information-gathering alert: it helps member nations trace a suspect’s identity, location or movements in the course of an active criminal investigation.
However, it does not seek an arrest that comes with a red notice, which requests member countries to locate and detain an accused for prosecution or sentencing. Interpol also issues other alerts, including yellow notices for missing persons, black notices for unidentified bodies, and green, orange and purple notices for specific crime-related threats.
For India, the CBI is the nodal authority for all Interpol communication. And the agency’s own Global Operations Centre has, in recent years, tracked over 200 fugitives abroad, successfully bringing back 136 through extradition or deportation. Officials say the same is now being deployed to locate the Luthras.
Investigators are banking on the India–Thailand extradition treaty, in force since 2015. Cooperation between the two countries has been strong, and several fugitives have previously been deported from Bangkok.
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“An arrest warrant against Saurabh and Gaurav Luthra is being obtained from a court (in Goa). They are being geolocated with the help of CBI’s Global Operations Centre (GOC) and other central agencies. Senior officials are already in touch with our Thai counterparts and efforts are on to arrest them in Phuket… We believe they will soon be brought back,” the officer said.
The police, the brothers boarded an IndiGo flight to Phuket at 5.30am on Sunday, barely six hours after the inferno erupted at Birch by Romeo Lane, well before investigators could reach their home in North Delhi. By Monday morning, teams confirmed that the duo had already crossed into Thailand.
