A Delhi court on Thursday denied transit anticipatory bail to Saurabh Luthra and Gaurav Luthra, who allegedly fled India after a fire at their nightclub in Goa killed 25 persons on December 7, Bar and Bench reported.

The Thailand Police detained the brothers in Phuket on Thursday at the request of the Indian government. The process to bring them to India is underway.

The fire had erupted around midnight on December 7 in a club named Birch by Romeo Lane, located near Baga beach, one of the most popular tourist spots in Goa. Twenty staff members and five tourists were killed.

A preliminary inquiry has said that “electric firecrackers” set off inside the premises triggered the fire.

Five persons, including the manager of the club, had been arrested in the matter. Saurabh Luthra and Gaurav Luthra, who live in Delhi, were also booked.

The brothers were in the national capital when the blaze erupted.

The Goa Police alleged that they had fled the country for Thailand hours after the fire broke out. However, the lawyers for the brothers claimed before the Delhi court that they had not fled the country, but had gone to Thailand for business reasons.

Their lawyers had told the court that the brothers were now wary of returning to India, fearing arrest and therefore sought four weeks of transit anticipatory bail. The counsel also told the court that their clients would approach the courts in Goa for further relief.

Advocate Abhinav Mukerji, representing the Goa government and the state police, told the court that the Luthra brothers booked the flight at 1.17 am on December 7, shortly after the fire.

He also alleged that the brothers had no business interest in Thailand and that their family did not cooperate with the police when the officers went to their home, Bar and Bench reported on Thursday.

On Thursday, The Indian Express quoted the Luthras’ legal team as saying that the brothers were law-abiding citizens who “never intended to evade the process of law” and had been “erroneously portrayed”.

The legal team had advised the brothers to “return to the country and submit themselves to the judicial system”, the newspaper quoted the statement as saying.

On Tuesday, the North Goa district administration demolished a portion of a shack run by the Luthra brothers in the Vagator area for allegedly encroaching on the beach.