- A woman alleged assault and rude behavior by staff at Romeo Lane beach shack in Goa
- Staff reportedly chased and hit them, blocking the exit with a barricade
- An FIR was filed against the manager, staff, and security, excluding the owners
A beach shack by Romeo Lane in Goa, owned by the Luthra brothers, had come under scanner last month after a case was filed against its staff for assaulting a woman and her family members.
The woman, identified as Vaibhav Chandel - a resident of Mumbai who visited the club on November 1 - alleged that the club's staff spoke rudely, behaved inappropriately, and hit them with rods. She also described the club as "suffocating", adding that it had only one entry and exit.
"I visited Romeo Lane in Vagator on November 1 with my cousins. We were 13 people in total. The club is built in such a way that it is very suffocating. It has only one entry and one exit, and that too at a height. So it is tough to enter and exit from that club. The staff spoke to us rudely and behaved inappropriately. When we were leaving the club around 3 am, a heavy chair was in our way. My cousin shifted it aside with his foot," Chandel recalled.
She said that it irked the staff, with the club's manager telling them: 'You are damaging the furniture; we should have thrown you out earlier. You don't have the status to be here'. He then grabbed her cousin's collar, she told news agency ANI.
"When we tried to apologise and leave, he called all the security personnel, the bouncers. They started chasing us and raised their hands at us. Since it was tough to leave that club, they chased us down and hit people in groups. They hit my sister on the chest, pushed her so badly that she fell down the stairs. They put up a barricade at the entry gate so we couldn't leave. When my brother removed it, a bouncer ran towards him with a rod and started hitting him badly," Chandel said.
According to the FIR, when Chandel tried to save her brother, the staff slapped her and tried to pull her t-shirt.
Chandel said the staff members kept using abusive language towards them.
"Since everyone was badly hurt, we decided to go to the police station in the morning and not right away. I informed the police, and they told us to come to the Anjuna police Station the next day. Somehow, an FIR was filed after a lot of effort," she said.
A case was filed against the club's manager, Ajay Kavitkar, another staff member, Junaid Ali, and the security staff.
The woman had included the names of Luthra brothers - Gaurav and Saurabh - in the complaint, but the cops removed it, saying they were not at fault as they were not physically present at the time of the incident, she said.
"If you don't take women's safety and tourist safety seriously, such incidents will keep happening in Goa," Chandel added.
The 'Romeo Lane' beach shack was demolished earlier this week at the orders of Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, days after a massive fire killed 25 people at another nightclub, 'Birch By Romeo Lane', owned by the Luthra brothers. The restaurant was built illegally on land owned by the government - a matter that came under focus after the tragedy.
Charged with culpable homicide, Gaurav and Saurabh Luthra fled the country hours after the fire, boarding an IndiGo flight bound for Thailand's Phuket. They were in Delhi when the incident took place.
