After being interrogated by the police for eight hours on Friday regarding the mysterious suicide of his “girlfriend” Nadia Torrado, Goa tourism minister Francisco (Mickky) Pacheco resigned from his post on Sunday. According to sources close to Mr Pacheco, the order to resign came from NCP president Sharad Pawar himself.
To make matters worse for Mr Pacheco, the crime branch was on the lookout for him throughout Saturday and all police stations had been put on alert. Sources said the crime branch was supposed to continue interrogating him from 10 am on Saturday but he did not turn up. By Saturday evening the Goa police had issued a “lookout” notice for Mr Pacheco and all international airports too had been alerted.
Goa chief minister Digambar Kamat confirmed to this newspaper that Mr Pacheco had faxed his resignation on Saturday morning and that he had forwarded the same to the governor. “I spoke to Mr Sharad Pawar and he too confirmed that he had asked Mr Pacheco to step down till his name was cleared in the incident.”
Since the death of 28-year-old Nadia Torrado on May 30, Mr Pacheco had been under immense pressure with various women’s groups, NGOs and the Opposition BJP calling for
his head. The fact that Torrado had said that she had consumed a tube of rat poison thinking it to be toothpaste did not convince anyone and NGOs had repeatedly asked the CM to thoroughly investigate the case.
Mr Pacheco had flown Torrado first to Thane, and then to Apollo Hospital, Chennai, where she died after a failed liver transplant. Torrado’s family has come out in Mr Pacheco’s support, saying they did not suspect anyone in her death.
On Friday, Mr Pacheco and Torrado’s family were questioned by the crime branch for eight hours. After the questioning, though Mr Pacheco did not issue any statements, PI Sunita Sawant, who is investigating the case, told reporters she had called him again at 10 am on Saturday for further questioning.
Mr Pacheco, however, did not turn up at the police station on Saturday morning and, according to police sources, was not reachable throughout the day.
Talking to reporters, superintendent of police Atmaram Deshpande confirmed that Mr Pacheco was, indeed, missing and that they were on the lookout for him. When asked whether there was any prima facie evidence against Mr Pacheco in the case, Mr Deshpande said, “It’s too early to say anything. All I can say that Mr Pacheco’s cooperation is very, very important at this stage of the case. We, however, have been told that he will be coming in this evening.”
NCP national secretary Jitendra Deshprabu confirmed that Mr Neelkanth Halarnkar will take over as tourism minister.
Mr Pacheco has been quite close to party president Sharad Pawar as far as Goa was concerned and NCP sources feel that with the allegations of murder/abetment to suicide against Mr Pacheco, there is now a vertical split within the Goa NCP ranks. “Some of them will support Mickky, while others like Jose Phillip and Neelkanth Halarnkar, who will take over as minister, will not support him. Mickky was the main person in the state to have access to Sharad Pawar. But this time either Pawar has not helped him or Mickky has not asked for help,” said an NCP source, adding, “This can turn two ways, either this is the end of Mickky or he will bounce back and then it will be very bad for those who have been against him.”
Mr Pacheco, who is already fighting a bigamy case against his wife, has also other cases pending against him. In 2009, a South Goa casino complained to the police that he owed them several lakhs that he had allegedly lost playing. A case of driving an unregistered car (a brand new Humvee) has also been filed against him along with another case of beating up a bus driver for “driving rashly”.