On Monday, members of the Opposition, the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the Congress led protests and disrupted the address of Goa Governor Pusapati Ashok Gajapathi Raju on the opening day of the winter session with the state assembly. This was in response to the deadly fire that erupted in a nightclub on the Birch by Romeo Lane, Arpora last month killing 25 people.
According to the authorities, the tragic incident was worsened by a series of safety failures, such as the lack of emergency exits, thatch, and huge piles of alcohol, which encouraged the fire. The club owners, who fled to Thailand immediately after the fire, Gaurav and Saurabh Luthra, were recently deported and were arrested at Delhi airport on December 16.
The head of the opposition Yuri Alemao accused the state government of negligence declaring the fire a non-natural disaster but a man-made one. He wanted political responsibility and he asked himself why some officials like a panchayat secretary, a sarpanch were being sacrificed and yet government departments were not doing anything to avert the tragedy. Our request was that the governor should address the issue of corruption and the Birch fire. This government is covered with blood. Who exactly is to blame of these 25 deaths? Alemao inquired seeking to understand how the environment, panchayat and home ministries could play a role in preventing such incidences.
In his speech, Governor Raju offered his heartfelt condolence to the survivors of the Lairai Devi Jatra stampede in Shirgao the Arpora nightclub fire and the road accidents, which have taken place recently. But he did not directly refer to the tragedy in the nightclubs other than the condolence, although the assembly had a minute of silence in memory of the victims.
The riot illustrated the rising anger among anti-government legislators and the citizenry towards administrational responsibility, safety standards, and prophylactic control. Alemao cautioned that in the absence of adequate checks and enforcement, such tragedies of such a scale might recur and that the system needs a radical overhaul and harsher enforcement regulations to ensure such incidents do not recur in the future.
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