Outside the Goa Medical College and Hospital morgue on Sunday, grief turned into fury as friends and family of the 25 people who perished in the Arpora nightclub fire, the most of whom were migrant employees, squatted in the intense afternoon sun and demanded to know: Where are the owners?
The bitter stench of formaldehyde wafted through the morgue's entrance, blending with the hopelessness of the relatives and friends of those slain in the fire, yet no one from the Birch By Romeo Lane nightclub's management was present.
After working through the night at other party venues in town, most of which employ people from some of the more rural regions of the country, such as Jharkhand and the Northeast, others had hurried to the hospital.
"We would like to speak with the proprietors. "Why else would we sit here?" asked a friend of one of the victims, Vivek Chhetri. The Luthra brothers, who own Birch By Romeo Lane, own a club in Vagator where a young man works. He wouldn't reveal his identity for fear of losing his job.
"Those who were aware of the fire fled, but they failed to alert our lads who were in the basement kitchen. He said, "They left the boys behind and fled to save themselves."
Many of the people who had come to identify the deceased carried photos that the victims' families had sent them over WhatsApp. Some were neighbors, relatives, nephews, or brothers.
Narayan Mahto, an Agacaim employee and native of Jharkhand, was present to identify two brothers, ages eighteen and twenty-two.
"They were my nephews," he declared. "The fire claimed the life of a third youngster from my state. Just six months ago, they followed me here in search of employment," he remarked.
Anguished faces gathered to debate what to do next were plagued by uncertainty about how they would send the bodies home following identification.
"The state government or the owners should investigate this. How can I make arrangements to send a body to my home country from here? Padam, a young man from Nepal who works in Goa, remarked.
He was there to identify the body of a stranger. "A family acquaintance connected to the dead called, so I arrived here around eight in the morning. "The authorities ought to have been present to assist us," Padam remarked.
