Sonia Torrado arrested by Goa Police Crime Branch.

Sonia Torrado, the 56 years old mother of 28-year-old Nadia Torrado whose suspicious death has brought down a Goa minister, was remanded to seven days’ police custody, by a Margao judicial magistrate on Friday after her sudden arrest by the Crime Branch of Goa Police on Thursday night.

The lower courts also extended the police custody of Goa’s former tourism minister Micky Pacheco, who is the main accused in the case, by four days. Pacheco’s lawyers told the court that the Nationalist Congress Party MLA should be allowed to attend the state Assembly session that begins here on Monday. The centre of attention in the packed lower court on Friday though was Nadia’s widowed mother, Sonia, who was arrested on Thursday for destruction of evidence.

Though Sonia’s lawyers argued that the crime branch had little to go by to implicate her in the case, the public prosecutor told the court that the mother had taken charge of Nadia’s cell phone after her death and even transferred the SIM card to her own name. The police needed to access call details for the investigation, she said. Piecing together evidence from the statement given by the Torrados’ maid, the police had said that Sonia, 56, played a key role in trying to wipe out crucial evidence that linked Nadia to Micky Pacheco.

Bags containing Nadia’s clothes and documents were burnt even before her funeral, the police said. The public prosecutor said the police wanted to interrogate Sonia Torrado in custody because the school teacher had refused to cooperate with the investigation so far.

In further development of the case Justice N. A. Britto has refused to hear the bail plea of the former Tourism minister, who is now in police custody saying “not before me”.