A day after a local court dismissed his bail plea in the Nadia Torrado death case, former state tourism minister Fransisco Pacheco was on Thursday shifted from a district hospital to prisoners ward in Goa Medical College.
The ex-minister was shifted from Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Hospicio Hospital in Margao and admitted to prisoners' ward of the state-run GMC hospital at Bambolim here, officials here said.
The 46-year-old NCP legislator was booked by the Crime Branch in connection with death of his close friend Nadia Torrado, 28, who allegedly committed suicide after consuming poison.
He has been charged with abetment of suicide and culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
Additional sessions judge Pramod Kamat had ordered Crime Branch to take custody of the former minister only after he is discharged from the hospital or certified to be medically fit.
Crime Branch had requested Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) to constitute a medical board - panel of doctors, to examine health status of Pacheco.
The investigating agencies had raised a suspicion on the health certificates provided by Margao hospital doctors and the genuiness of his sickness.
Pacheco is currently undergoing treatment for hypertension, jaundice and urinary tract infection.
GMC officials said they are yet to constitute a panel and till then, the minister would be kept in the prisoners ward.
Pacheco, when brought to the hospital in an ambulance, refused to speak to the media.
Crime branch officials said they will take Pacheco's custody only after he is medically fit.
"We want to have his custodial interrogation to get more details in the case. We will take his custody only after he is fit," an official said.