Goa nightclub fire | 'What will we do with the bodies': Kin gather outside morgue to identify victims

As Goa is yet to come to terms with the nightclub tragedy that claimed the lives of 25 people, distraught relatives and acquaintances of the nightclub fire victims gathered outside the morgue of a state-run hospital on Sunday, anxiously awaiting information about their loved ones.

Some of them, hailing from a village in Jharkhand, said they would not accept the bodies and demanded that the nightclub owner arrange for the mortal remains to be transported back home.

They added that four persons from their native place had been working as helpers and cooks at the nightclub in Arpora, North Goa, where the massive blaze after midnight on Sunday claimed 25 lives and left six others injured.

A group of labourers hailing from Jharkhand was sitting since early morning outside the morgue at the Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) near Panaji for information about their kin.

Goa police personnel were trying to identify the bodies, a few of them charred, kept in a morgue after the tragic fire incident at Birch by Romeo Lane nightclub.

According to police, the 25 deceased included four tourists and 14 staff members. The identity of the remaining seven was yet to be established.

Nandlal Nag from Jharkhand, who works as a security guard at an establishment in Arpora, told PTI that four persons from his village were suspcted of those who died in the inferno.

"There are four people (victims) from my village in Jharkhand, one of them is my brother's son. All of them were working as helpers and cooks in the nightclub," he said.

The victims came to Goa from Jharkhand five years back and since then they were working in various hotels and nightclubs in the coastal state, Nag said.

He also said that they will not accept the bodies.

"What will we do with the bodies? The owner of the hotel should make arrangements to transport them to our village in Jharkhand," Nag said.

Another group of five persons from Assam was also seen sitting outside the morgue. While they refused to talk to the media, one of them claimed that some of the fire victims were their friends.

A senior police official said that it will take a day to identify all the bodies and conduct the postmortem, only after which the mortal remains will be handed over to their relatives.

The postmortem would be conducted after the police complete the panchanama formalities, sources in the GMCH's forensic department said.