Ex-Goa minister Pacheco applies for bail

Panaji: Former Goa Tourism Minister Fransisco Mickey Pacheco on Tuesday applied for anticipatory bail, with the police saying that the NCP leader who has been on the run was the prime suspect in the death of his woman friend.

The 46-year-old lawmaker, who resigned from the Cabinet on Saturday over allegations about involvement in the death of Nadia Torrado on May 15, moved the bail application in the

Sessions Court through his lawyer.

"The prime suspect in this case is Mickey Pacheco who is presently avoiding appearing for interrogation and investigation in this offence and his present whereabouts are not known," said Police Inspector Sunita Sawant told the court in Margao.

This is for the first time that the Crime Branch has said that Pacheco was the main suspect in 28-year-old Nadia's death.

Police also claimed that "there has been a systematic and sustained destruction of evidence and it appears that Pacheco" and his close aide Lyndon Monteiro "may have very important role in the destruction of evidence".

Pacheco was questioned by Crime Branch for over eight hours on June 4 and was summoned again the next day. But he faxed his resignation to the Chief Minister's Office and has been untraceable since then.

The former Minister's close aide and Officer on Special Duty (OSD) Monteiro, who was summoned by the police, has also moved for anticipatory bail in sessions court which would heard it tomorrow.

Nadia was admitted to local hospital after she allegedly consumed poison and later shifted to a hospital in Thane, Mumbai before being transferred to a private hospital in Chennai where she died.

The Crime Branch has said two postmortems done in Chennai and Goa have indicated that there were injuries on Nadia's body.

Police have said that 14 injuries were visible on her forearms, wrist, right half of lower lip, thighs, left leg, right arm, back of left shoulder and chest.

The second autopsy conducted at government-run hospital, Margao has recorded that there are eight injuries of which two are caused by hard and blunt weapon and are ante-mortem in nature.

Police have said that a mobile phone and laptop which were used by the victim are missing.

Meanwhile, NCP legislator Nilkant Halarnkar was on Tuesday inducted in the Digamber Kamat Cabinet in place of Pacheco.