A 39-year-old Bengaluru CEO Suchana Seth has been charged with murdering her four-year-old son at a service apartment in Candolim, North Goa. Seth, the founder and CEO of an artificial intelligence start-up called Mindful AI Lab, checked into Room 404 at Hotel Sol Banyan Grande, North Goa, with her son on Saturday, January 6. She allegedly killed her son there with a sharp object and checked out of the room alone on Monday morning, carrying the body with her in a bag.
On the morning of January 8, she went to the hotel's manager and asked him to arrange a taxi to Karnataka and left immediately after checking out.
As per an NDTV report, despite being advised to board a flight as a more convenient and cheaper alternative, she insisted on taking a local taxi to Karnataka after checking out and asked the staff to arrange one for her.
The staff noticed the absence of her son, and the housekeeping staff also noticed bloodstains while cleaning the apartment she checked out from.
Suspecting something amiss, the hotel staff called the Goa police and informed them about it around 11 am on Monday morning. As per North Goa SP Nidhin Valsan, the police team then reached the hotel, where they scanned the CCTV footage, only to find out that she did indeed leave alone from the hotel.
Inspector Paresh Naik of the Calangute police station then called the taxi driver and spoke to Suchana to inquire about her son. Lying about her son's whereabouts, she told the police that he was at her friend's home in Fatorda and even provided an address, which later turned out to be fake.
Inspector Naik called the taxi driver again and spoke to him in Konkani, asking him to stop at a nearby police station without attracting any attention from the suspected murderer. By then, the car was in Chitradurga district in Karnataka, about 130 kilometres away from Goa. The driver then drove straight to the Aimangala police station without Suchana suspecting anything. Based on the alert issued by the Goa Police, an officer checked the car and found the body of the child in a bag Suchana Seth was travelling with, after which she was arrested by the police.
A Goa Police team was on its way by then to take Seth's custody to bring her to Goa on transit remand for further questioning.
The Chitradurga police also called her husband, Venkat Raman, an AI developer, to come to the police station, reported NDTV.
Goa's Police on Tuesday said that Suchana Seth has been accused of murdering her son and destroying evidence. SP Nidhin Valsan, North Goa said that as per preliminary investigation, the tension in the relationship with her husband was the reason behind the murder.