'Missing' ex-Goa minister's arrest warrant extended by a week

A Goa court on Monday extended the arrest warrant of convicted former minister Francisco Pacheco by seven days while issuing a notice to his partner Viola Pacheco to produce the sitting MLA, missing for nearly three weeks.

Judicial Magistrate First Class (Margao) Pooja Kavlekar was conducting the hearing on the serving of the arrest warrant to Pacheco who remains untraceable since April 9.

Pacheco, a former archives and archaeology minister whose party is part of the ruling BJP-led coalition government in Goa, is on the run after his conviction in a 2006 assault case was upheld by the Supreme Court a month back.

On April 23, the trial court had issued a warrant to search Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar's official residence in New Delhi, after the petitioner, an activist-lawyer alleged that Pacheco was hiding at the location.

The state government, however, managed to secure a stay on the search warrant after appealing to an appellate court late on the same night.

The court in an earlier observation also said in open court that it was "embarrassing" that the police were not able to arrest a former minister and a sitting legislator.

Pacheco's former cabinet colleague, minister for art and culture Dayanand Mandrekar, on Saturday suggested that the 'missing' minister may have escaped abroad.

Pacheco has been embroiled in a whole range of cases, apart from the 2006 assault, including culpable homicide, bigamy, assault and extortion.

Pacheco is also being probed for illegal trafficking and money laundering by the US government's Bureau of Diplomatic Security (BDS) and was questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation in this regard in 2010.

He was also accused of abetting the suicide of his woman friend Nadia Torrado in 2010.

However, some time after the 2012 state assembly election and the BJP's ascent to power on the shoulders of the present coalition, Crime Branch officials claimed that due to lack of evidence filing a closure report was imminent.