Goa minister’s ‘partner’ death case given to Crime Branch

PANAJI - Goa Police Wednesday transferred to the Crime Branch the investigation into the mysterious death of Tourism Minister Mickky Pacheco’s alleged paramour in Chennai.

Pacheco has, however, said that he was a victim of a witch-hunt by Goa Police and demanded a judicial probe into Nadia Torrado’s death by poisoning and similar judicial enquiries into several other scams in which “kin of political bigwigs are involved”.

In a pressnote, the police department here Wednesday stated that the Nadia case had been transferred to the Crime Branch for “professional investigation”.

“It has come to notice during investigation that there are certain suspicious circumstances surrounding the death (of Nadia) which point towards abetment of a suicide. For a professional investigation, the case has been transferred to Crime Branch for further investigation with immediate effect,” the pressnote said.

Pacheco, in a letter to Chief Minister Digambar Kamat, however, said he has been a victim of a witch-hunt by Goa Police.

“Goa Police have indulged in witch-hunting to harass me and my family unnecessarily, obviously at the behest of some vested interests following the death of Mrs Nadia Torrado,” Pacheco has said, adding that he has been served notice by the police not to leave the state without their permission.

Calling the deceased Nadia a close personal friend, Pacheco said the police were also harassing her family.

Calling the behaviour of Goa Police “weird” and “biased”, Pacheco has said “the police force is behaving at the instance of some vested interests in the government who have been always inimical to me”.

“I, therefore, request you to institute a judicial enquiry by a retired high court judge to investigate impartially the death of my good friend Nadia as well as the excise scam and the drug racket in which cases the kin and the kith of political bigwigs in the government are involved,” Pacheco has told the chief minister.

While the excise scam Pacheco referred to is a multi-crore illegal alcohol smuggling racket involving the excise ministry, which is a part of Kamat’s portfolio, the trail of the drug racket Pacheco mentioned leads up to a senior cabinet minister, whose son, as alleged by a Swedish model and former girlfriend of an Israeli drug dealer, has links with the drug mafia in Goa.

–Indo Asian News Service