The four-year-old son of Suchana Seth, the chief executive officer (CEO) of an artificial intelligence start-up company in Bengaluru, was smothered to death, according to a doctor, who cited the post-mortem report.

Seth was arrested from Chitradurga in Karnataka on Monday night for allegedly killing her son at a service apartment in Goa during a vacation last week. She was on her way from Goa to Bengaluru carrying the boy’s body which was recovered in a suitcase. She was arrested on the directions of the Goa Police.

Also Read: All about Suchana Seth, Bengaluru-based CEO arrested for killing 4-year-old son in Goa

Here is what has happened in the case so far

  • The heinous murder occurred on the intervening night of January 7 and 8 in a service apartment hotel in North Goa’s Sinquerim.
  • Suchana Seth loaded the bag with the body into a taxi she had ordered from the hotel she was staying at and asked the driver to head towards Bengaluru.
  • Hotel staff alerted the police after they found blood stains in the room. A senior police official said the entrepreneur smothered her son to death and then tried to commit suicide by cutting her left wrist with a sharp object.
    “The blood stains that were found on a towel in the service apartment were due to the slashing of her wrist,” he said, PTI reported.
  • Suchana Seth was caught in Karnataka’s Chitradurga district while trying to flee in a cab with her son’s body stuffed in a bag on Monday night.

Also Read: Start-up CEO kills her 4-year-old son at Goa apartment, arrested while fleeing with body in bag

  • The motive for the heinous crime is not known yet but police suspect the CEO’s estranged relationship with her husband, Venkat Raman, as a possible reason behind the killing. Police said Seth, who is a native of West Bengal, was unhappy about her ongoing divorce with her husband Venkat Raman.
  • A senior police official 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.”
  • Hiriyur Taluk Hospital’s administrative officer Dr Kumar Naik, citing the post-mortem report, 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.”
  • He further mentioned that the death occurred at least 36 hours ago. “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. Naik said there was no blood loss or struggle marks on the body.

Also Read: Hotel staff, cab driver: How alert citizens helped Goa Police nab woman CEO who ‘killed’ son

  • Suchana Seth has been booked under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 302 (murder) and 201 (destruction of evidence), and also under the Goa Children’s Act at the Calangute police station. She was brought to Goa at around 1 pm on Tuesday and presented before a court in Mapusa town, which remanded her in police custody for six days.
  • Police officials said that the accused and her husband have been involved in divorce proceedings since the year 2022. “Upon his return to India, the father identified the boy and he said that they got married in 2010 and their divorce proceedings started in 2022. Recently, the court issued an order allowing the son to spend time with his father. During interrogation with our investigating officers, the accused woman seemed to be unhappy with the court order,” SP Valsan told ANI.