By IANS,
Panaji : A bigamy complaint has been filed against high profile Goa Tourism Minister Francisco Pacheco by his estranged wife, who has provided documents to back her charge that her husband married another woman.
Francisco alias Mickky Pacheco’s estranged wife Sara, in her complaint filed at the Colva police station and the Salcete Block Development Office, alleged that the minister had committed bigamy and had harassed her mentally and physically.
Sara has claimed that Mickky was now married and living with Viola Pacheco. She has also attached Viola’s Election Photo Identification Card, which states that the woman is married to Mickky, as evidence, along with other documents.
Salcete Block Development Officer Uday Prabhudessai, a designated protection officer under the Domestic Violence Act, has said that there is enough substance in the complaint for putting it up before a magistrate.
“The judicial process can now take over,” Prabhudessai told IANS Saturday.
The police, which had referred the case to the director of prosecution earlier, have washed their hands off the case. “The police have no role in this. It is an internal dispute,” Margao Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Umesh Gaonkar told IANS.
In her complaint Sara said that she was married to Mickky on April 10, 1999, and it was duly registered before the Margao sub registrar.
“My husband, who was very good to me and was deeply in love with me, suddenly changed after he got elected as MLA and became minister in the year 2002. It was at this time that he began to stray and chase other women and accused me of being fat and ugly,” the complaint reads, adding that Sara was forced to quit the house in 2004, “practically only with the dress I was wearing”.
“I am now left penniless while my minister husband Mickky is solely enjoying the wealth that belongs jointly to both of us. He has now married Viola Rosaline Fernandes and has three children through her,” the complaint alleges.
The process of registration of the bigamy complaint against Mickky before a magistrate has coincided with the tourism minister’s increasingly vociferous outbursts against Chief Minister Digambar Kamat, criticising the latter’s style of functioning.