By Frederick Noronha

He was a secret service agent who used to torment freedom fighters when Goa was under Portuguese rule. Now some crucial missing links on ‘Agente Monteiro’ have surfaced in cyberspace.

A posting on goanet.org has led to the unearthing of an interesting, though painful, chapter of history.

Agente Agente Casimiro Emérito Rosa Teles Jordão Monteiro Monteiro has long been a dreaded name in Goa because of the legendary brutality with which he is believed to have enacted against anyone who challenged the colonial state.

Oddly, the posting got noticed by someone in Britain, who claims to be the son of Agente Monteiro and was aghast about the manner in which his father — who’s now believed to be dead — had treated the people of Goa in his time.

Just a few weeks ago, Roland Francis, a Canadian-based Goan, accidentally posted a report about Agente Monteiro of the dreaded Policia International de Defense do Estada — the colonial Portuguese equivalent of the U.S.’s CIA — as reflected in the 1955 Maharashtra Gazette records.

The man claiming to be the brute’s son, recalled that when he was five years old, he "wondered whatever happened to my father after we left Goa suddenly for a holiday break of eight months in 1958 in Lisbon, returning to Goa afterwards but not seeing him much, then after a while, never again."

Agente Monteiro was believed to be the actual killer in 1965 of dissident Portuguese politician General Humberto Delgado and his Brazilian secretary, who challenged the Portuguese dictator Salazar.

Now, decades later, many Goans have come forward with tales of brutality and ill-treatment inflicted by Monteiro. Many also want to forget about those terrifying days.