How did a death trap pass every check in Goa?

Saturday nights in Goa have always followed a familiar rhythm. From Calangute and Baga to Anjuna, Vagator, Morjim, Mandrem and Arambol, the coastal belt turns into a glowing strip of music and excitement, with thousands asking the same question: “Where’s the party tonight?” But the night of December 6 and 7 will not be remembered for revelry. It will be remembered as a night when celebration turned into horror.
The fire that ripped through Birch by Romeo Lane in Arpora, a popular nightclub built more on glamour than safety, ended at least 25 lives in minutes. Young workers, tourists and staff members were trapped in a basement that should never have existed in the first place, cramped, flammable and completely unprepared for disaster.

This was not an accident. It was a man-made tragedy built on negligence and enabled by a system that has, for years, allowed businesses to thrive without accountability. It is not enough to blame the club owners alone. The tougher questions lie elsewhere. How was such a structure allowed to function? Where were the fire safety checks? Who issued or renewed the licences? And why do our regulatory bodies, Town and Country Planning, local panchayats, PWD, Electricity, Fire Services, Pollution Control and others, so often fail in their basic responsibility of protecting human life?

As expected, the standard script has already begun. A criminal case is registered. A few arrests are made. Leaders issue statements promising that “no one will be spared.” Compensation is announced. Then comes the familiar slide into delay, with multiple inquiries, muddled evidence, weak charges and a slow trial that eventually collapses under its own weight. It always ends the same way, with families waiting for closure, anger fading into exhaustion and the system quietly readying itself for the next disaster.

The initial sections invoked in the case may sound adequate, but they fall short of the gravity of this crime. Stronger provisions like criminal conspiracy and abetment should have been added from the start. Without them, the chain of complicity will remain hidden and officials responsible will slip away. Random arrests made only to calm public anger will ultimately weaken the case. What is needed is careful, uncompromised custodial questioning of those who approved, inspected or ignored the establishment’s glaring violations. Unless government officials are questioned and held accountable, the political influence and corruption that protect such venues will never come to light. India does not lack laws. It lacks the will to enforce them when the powerful are involved.

The tragedy in Goa echoes another national wound, the Uphaar Cinema fire of 1997. There too, blocked exits, faulty systems and regulatory lapses killed 59 people. It took 18 years for convictions, and even then the families were left battling fatigue as much as injustice. Compensation eventually came, but it could never match the depth of their loss. One of the grieving families was that of Dr S. S. Sidhu, former Governor of Goa, who lost four members that night. He later created a trust for children using part of the compensation. His gesture was dignified, but born from unbearable pain.

Today, the Goa government has announced a magisterial inquiry. But such inquiries rarely deliver accountability. They often serve more to manage public anger than to deliver truth. If the intention is genuine, what is needed is a judicial inquiry, one with the independence and authority to examine not just the club owners but every regulatory body whose negligence contributed to this tragedy.

For now, our responsibility is twofold. We must support the grieving families, and we must ensure their legal fight does not become another endless and punishing ordeal. Civil remedies through tort law must be pursued so that compensation is meaningful and not symbolic. But even more important is a collective insistence on structural change. Tears are not enough. Outrage is not enough. Promises are not enough. What Goa needs now is accountability that is real, uncomfortable and enforced from the top.

Because if we fail to demand it today, we are accepting that Saturday nights in Goa will always carry an unspoken risk. And when the next preventable tragedy strikes, we will again stand amid smoke, grief and unanswered questions, wondering why nothing ever changes.