Woman CEO of Bengaluru start-up kills 4-year-old son in Goa, arrested with body in bag

Goa: The CEO of a Bengaluru-based start-up Mindful AI Lab was arrested in Karnataka's Chitradurga on Monday with her four-year-old son's body in a bag.
Suchana Seth (39) was travelling to Karnataka from Goa when the police nabbed her. She allegedly murdered her son at an apartment in Sol Banyan Grande at Candolim, North Goa.

Soon after the gruesome crime that took place between January 6 and 8, the accused woman, Suchana Seth, also tried to end her life by cutting her wrist with a sharp object, police said, adding that the motive behind the murder is not immediately known. Seth was arrested from Chitradurga in Karnataka on Monday night and brought to Goa on Tuesday. A court in Mapusa town remanded her in police custody for six days, an official said. 

"She checked into a service apartment at Candolim in North Goa on January 6 along with her son," Calangute police station inspector Paresh Naik said. After staying there for two days, she informed the apartment staff that she wanted to go to Bengaluru for some work and asked them to arrange for a taxi, he said. "The staff suggested that she could take a flight to Bengaluru which would be a cheaper option rather than hiring a taxi which is expensive," he said. The accused insisted that she would travel by taxi only, and accordingly, a vehicle was arranged on January 8 in which she left early in the morning.

The incident came to light later, when the apartment staff went to clean the room in which she stayed, and they found blood stains on a towel.

"The management of the apartment immediately informed the Calangute police, who then reached the spot," police said. The staff also informed the police that the woman's four-year-old son was not seen with her when she left the apartment and she was also carrying an unusually heavy bag. They then called the accused and enquired with her about the blood stains and her "missing" son.

"The accused told us that the blood stains were due to her monthly periods. She also told us that her son was with her friend in Margao town (in South Goa) and provided the address," the official said. The address was fake. The inspector later spoke over the phone to the taxi driver, who was on way to Bengaluru and had reached Chitradurga district in Karnataka, to take the accused to the nearest police station. The police in Chitradurga checked the woman's bag in which they found the body of the child, Naik said.

The accused has told the police that she and her husband were estranged and their divorce proceedings were currently underway.

The accused has been booked by the Calangute police under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 302 (murder) and 201 (destruction of evidence), and also under the Goa Children's Act, he said. The SP said that the motive behind the murder would be established only after her interrogation.

Estranged Malayali husband in Indonesia
"What she has told us till now is that she and her husband were estranged and that they are currently undergoing divorce proceedings," Superintendent of Police (North) Nidhin Valsan said. The accused woman hails from West Bengal and has been living in Bengaluru, while her husband is from Kerala, the official said. Her estranged husband is currently in Jakarta (Indonesia) and he has been informed about the incident, Valsan said.

According to him, the accused woman had stuffed the child's body in her "luggage". "The exact cause of his death would be established only after a post-mortem is conducted," he said.

According to her LinkedIn profile, Suchana is an AI ethics expert and data scientist with over 12 years of experience. She was on the 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics List.