After being on the run for nearly a month,former Goa minister Fransisco Pacheco surrendered before a local court which sent him to two-day judicial custody in connection with the death of his woman friend Nadia Torrado. Pacheco surrendered at the sessions court at Margao in the morning,two days after Supreme Court rejected his anticipatory bail plea. Soon he moved the court for an interim bail,but this plea was also rejected. Additional Sessions Judge Pramod Kamat remanded Pacheco in judicial custody till Monday,when his petition for regular bail will come up for hearing. The Crime Branch is investigating the death of Nadia,a close woman friend of the NCP leader. It has booked Pacheco and his close aide Lyndon Monteiro for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and destruction of evidence respectively. Seeking interim bail,Pacheco's lawyer argued that although his client has been made an accused,there is nothing on record to specify his involvement in the crime. He said that the doctors at Apollo Hospital in Goa,where Nadia was brought immediately after she allegedly consumed poison on May 15,had stated that there were no marks on her body. "Even the doctors at Jupiter Hospital in Thane near Mumbai (where she was shifted later) had ruled out any bruises," the lawyer said. The Crime Branch sought Pacheco's custodial interrogation suspecting his involvement in assaulting Nadia. It questioned Monteiro at its office in Dona Paula. He was given anticipatory bail by Supreme Court. The former OSD,who also held key posts like vice chairman of Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC),appeared before Crime Branch this morning. "I have full faith in the judiciary. I will provide all the necessary cooperation required to investigate Nadia's death,which is actually a suicide," Monteiro said. He said he was not hiding but was at his residence at Verna,25 km from here. "I was busy approaching courts seeking anticipatory bail. Police came to my house only once when I was not there. They never visited again." He denied the charge levelled by the police. Pacheco had resigned on June 5,a day after he was quizzed by Crime Branch.
