The government of Laxmikant Parsekar is, in all likelihood, using all its machinery to avoid arresting its former minister and supportive MLA Mickky Pacheco. There was a time last month when many, including Herald, had expressed how Pacheco’s luck with the law frequently runs out and his arrest order for slapping an engineer was not proportionate to his crime. But with the Nuvem MLA plainly defying, ridiculing and insulting the law and the Supreme Court with impunity, questions need to be asked of the possibility of the active connivance of the Parsekar government and its police in doing the exact opposite of what the Supreme Court and the Margao JMFC have asked them to, arrest Mickky and send him to jail to serve his sentence.
The Supreme Court has made some very strong observations about the manner in which the MLA has been absconding, stating that he should have surrendered when his Special Leave Petition before the court, against the High Court order convicting him was dismissed. The Court, refusing to grant him even a single day to surrender, on May 11, said he should have done so a month ago. But even that has been violated as Pacheco has not showed up, 48 hours after the Apex Court’s rap.
The entire drama which has been played out for over a month is working to a script, which has a tragic flaw. It will have an ending which the script writers do not desire. Not only will this abject insult of the law force him to serve out his sentence, but his conduct will be his biggest stumbling block for all future cases or litigations.
But this isn’t all about Pacheco but Parsekar. Does the Chief Minister expect us to believe that for over a month, its police could not track down a high profile MLA with a larger than life presence. Herald has learnt that the MLA has been in touch with quite a few people. He has a retinue of very dear friends and business partners who he cannot cut off from. He has a strong set of followers among the Goa police who swear absolute allegiance to him. He has his family here, who could not have been disconnected from him totally. He has definitely left a trail somewhere and if not, then he has the reflexes, guile and planning of a seasoned criminal on the run, which to be fair to the beleaguered MLA, he is not. He is simply being protected by the state for his political support to the BJP government. While there is no evidence of any direct link, can anyone deny that Narendra Sawaikar would not have become the South Goa MP, without Pacheco’s crucial support and as the 2017 elections are a year away, Pacheco is the only anchor the BJP seems to have in this part of Salcete, amidst a serious slippage of its fortunes. Therefore, this government surely has the motives for protecting him and once motives are established, the case becomes stronger.
It is hard to imagine that all Parsekar’s police and all Parsekar’s men could not being Mickky to Goa again, enroute to one of its jails. The state has allegedly become a stakeholder in his protection in a manner seldom seen before.
A parallel investigation should commence to track the activities of the force entrusted to arrest him including their travel logs and call records and all their movements. Pacheco himself and now Parsekar, have really made a mountain out of a mole hill, one by breaking the law and other by protecting the law breaker. Both are equally guilty.
