On 8th January, 39-year-old Suchana Seth, CEO of Mindful AI Lab and resident of Bengaluru was arrested by Goa Police for allegedly killing her four-year-old son. Investigations have revealed that she was arrested because of a traffic jam on the Goa Bangalore highway. Seth had left the rented serviced apartment in Goa with the body of her son stuffed in a bag.
She was arrested only because there was a traffic jam of 4 hours when she was going from Goa to Bangalore.
Seth’s journey was delayed due to a four-hour traffic jam caused by an overturned truck at Chorla Ghat. This bottleneck occurred at the convergence of the borders of Goa, Karnataka, and Maharashtra. A truck had overturned causing the highway jam.
The driver was quoted by Indian Express saying, “We started from Goa at 12.30 am. The trolley bag was unusually heavy, but I loaded it in the boot space just as she had asked me. Since there was a traffic jam near Chorla Ghat because a truck had overturned, I even offered to drop her at the airport by an alternate route. I was told that she was in a hurry and she needed to reach Bengaluru urgently. But she refused to go to the airport. I did not say anything further, I was getting paid for the trip.”
Suchana Seth got late because of this traffic jam, as per reports. The police called the cab driver and asked him in Konkani language to stop the vehicle near a police station without informing Suchana Seth and inform the police back. Suchana Seth had no clue where the cab driver was taking the car. When the car was stopped near the police station, she was shocked. Before she could do anything, the Karnataka police caught her. When Suchana’s bag was searched, the body of her son was found in it.
The Karnataka police immediately detained her and informed the Goa police. The Goa police reached the Aimangala police station in Chitradurga in Karnataka and arrested Suchana Seth. Had there not been a 4-hour traffic jam, perhaps Suchana Seth would have reached Bangalore and disposed of the son’s body. The traffic jam on the Goa-Bangalore highway failed her plan.
Seth has been kept on a 6-day police remand by the court. Suchana’s husband Venkataraman also arrived in India from Indonesia on Tuesday evening. The police will call him for questioning within the next two to three days. A day before the incident took place in Goa’s service apartment, Venkataraman made a video call to Suchana to talk to his son. At that time, Suchana Seth had said that he could meet his son. But the very next day, she strangled the son to death.
Why did Suchana Seth go to Goa?
Suchana Seth and her husband were facing marital disputes, as per reports. When the matter reached the court, the mother got the custody of the son. Since then, Suchana did not allow her son to meet her husband Venkataraman, as per some reports. Venkataraman filed an application in the court for this. The court ordered that Venkataraman would be able to meet his son every Sunday. Some media reports have stated that the CEO was demanding over 2.5 lakh rupees of monthly maintenance from her husband.
The murder and the arrest
On 6th January, Suchana Seth arrived in Goa from Bangalore accompanied by her 4-year-old son. Having pre-booked a service apartment in Hotel Sol Banyan Grande in the Candolim area, she promptly checked in and provided her identification at the reception. Over the next two days, on 6th and 7th January, she explored Goa with her son. However, on the night of 7th January, she allegedly killed her child.
The hotel staff had alerted police after they noticed blood stains in a pillow and the management realised that the child was not accompanying her mother when she checked out.
Early on 8th January, she arranged for a cab and departed, raising suspicion among the service apartment staff who noted that her son was conspicuously absent during the checkout process.
Then, the police contacted Royjohn D’Souza, a cab driver from North Goa’s Anjuna instructing him to discreetly take Suchana to a nearby police station without informing her. Complying with the instructions, the driver took her to a police station in Karnataka. Medical examination of the child’s body has reportedly revealed that he was smothered, possibly with a pillow.
