Goa: Pacheco gets bail in Nadia death case

Former Goa tourism minister Micky Pacheco was on Monday granted bail by a local court in connection with the Nadia Torrado death case.

Margao District and Sessions Judge B P Deshpande granted bail to Pacheco, who was admitted to a hospital in Panaji on Sunday evening after he complained of chest pain, on a Rs 25,000 bond and surety of an equal amount.

The 46-year-old Nationalist Congress Party legislator, who surrendered before the court on July 3, has been asked not to leave the country and surrender his passport to the court. He was remanded to 14-day judicial custody on July 23 in connection with the case.

Pacheco was booked by the Goa Crime Branch on charges of abetment to suicide, destruction of evidence and culpable homicide not amounting to murder. His close friend Nadia Torrado had committed suicide allegedly by consuming rat poison on May 15.

His close aide Lyndon Monteiro and Nadia's mother Sonia have also been booked in the case.

Nadia died on May 30 and Pacheco was arrested on July 8 immediately after he was discharged from a district hospital, where he was admitted following complaints of hypertension, urinary tract infection and jaundice.

Goa Medical College Medical Superintendent Rajan Cuncolienkar said, "Pacheco has been kept in the Coronary Care Unit and his condition is stable now."

"As of now we cannot say when he will be discharged," he said.