Suchana Seth, the chief executive officer of an artificial intelligence start-up who allegedly killed her four-year-old son at a service apartment in Goa, apparently used a towel or a pillow to strangulate the boy, a doctor has said.
Seth was arrested from Chitradurga in Karnataka on Monday night and brought to Goa on Tuesday. The minor was killed and stuffed in a bag before the woman took it to neighbouring Karnataka in a taxi. The incident took place between January 6 and 8. The boy’s burial will be held today in Bengaluru.
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According to Dr Kumar Naik, Hiriyur Taluk Hospital’s administrative officer, the minor boy was smothered to death by his mother, Suchana Seth. Citing his postmortem report, the doctor said, “He (the child) was strangled to death or what we call smothering. Either a cloth or a pillow was used. The child died due to strangulation. It doesn’t look like the child was strangulated using hands. It looks like a pillow or some other material was used.”
“The rigor mortis had resolved in the child. Usually in India, rigor mortis resolves after 36 hours but in this child’s case, there was no rigor mortis. So, it has been more than 36 hours since his death,” he said, adding, there was no blood loss or struggle marks on the body.
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The father of the four-year-old boy who was killed by his mother in Goa, returned to India from Jakarta on Tuesday evening on learning about his child’s murder, police told news agency PTI. The man, Venkat Raman, arrived at Chitradurga in Karnataka, and gave his consent to the local authorities to conduct a post-mortem on his son’s body, they said.
“Raman, who was in Jakarta (Indonesia), was contacted by the police and told about the incident. After that, he returned to India. On his arrival in Chitradurga in the evening, he gave his consent for a post-mortem on his child’s body,” a senior police official said.
The burial of Suchana Seth’s four-year-old son will be held on Wednesday in Bengaluru.
Meanwhile, the building that houses several service apartments at Candolim in North Goa on Tuesday prohibited outsiders from entering the premises after the incident came to light. The minor boy was killed in one of these facilities. The owner of the ‘Sol Banyan Grande’ building has instructed the security guards not to allow anyone, especially media persons, inside, eyewitnesses told PTI.
Other guests, who are currently staying on the premises, continued to spend their vacations at the property, they said. Seth had checked into the service apartment with her son on January 6 and after staying there for two days, she went to Bengaluru in a taxi on Monday.
A court in Goa’s Mapusa town remanded the woman in police custody for six days, an official said. The accused has told the police that she and her husband were estranged and their divorce proceedings were currently underway. According to Seth’s LinkedIn page, she is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of start-up Mindful AI Lab and was among the top ‘100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics for 2021’.
The incident came to light after the staff of the service apartment found blood stains on a towel. According to the staff, the accused woman informed them that she wanted to go to Bengaluru for some work and asked them to arrange for a taxi.
The staff suggested that she could take a flight to Bengaluru, which would be a cheaper option, rather than hiring a taxi, which is an expensive proposition. However, the accused insisted that she would travel by taxi only, and accordingly, a vehicle was arranged on January 8 in which she left early morning. Later, when the apartment staff went to clean the room in which she stayed, they found blood stains on a towel.
As the woman left the service apartment, the management immediately informed the Calangute police, who then reached the spot. The staff also informed that the woman’s four-year-old son was not seen with her when she left. They also said she was also carrying an unusually heavy bag.
The police then called the accused and enquired her about the blood stains and her “missing” son, to which, the woman said the blood stains were due to her monthly periods. She also said her son was with her friend in Margao town (in South Goa) and provided an address. Later, it was found that the address provided by the woman was fake.
Meanwhile, the police also spoke over the phone to the taxi driver, who was on his way to Bengaluru and had reached Chitradurga district in Karnataka, to take the accused to the nearest police station. As the woman reached the police station, her bag was checked and the body of the child was found.
A team of the Calangute police then rushed to Chitradurga and obtained a transit remand for the accused, who was being brought to Goa. Later, the husband of the woman was also informed about the incident.
It was also learnt that after killing her son, the woman attempted to die by suicide by slitting her left wrist. However, she changed her mind and left for Bengaluru with her son’s body stuffed in a bag in a tourist cab that cost her Rs 30,000, investigations revealed.
According to reports, Seth is an expert in ‘AI Ethics Advisory & Audits’ and ‘Responsible AI Strategy’. A postgraduate from the University of Calcutta, and a research fellow from the Raman Research Institute (RRI). She spent two years at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.
Suchana Seth and her husband got married in 2010 after they both met in Bengaluru. They filed for divorce due to their frequent arguments and fights. The court allowed the father of the child to meet his son on Sundays. The father had video called his son last on Sunday (January 7) as he was in Indonesia and couldn’t meet him personally.