Bengaluru CEO who allegedly killed son, 4, accused husband of violence

mangaloretoday.com/ndtv

Bengaluru, Jan 10, 2024: Suchana Seth - the Bengaluru-based AI data scientist accused of murdering her four-year-old son at a hotel in north Goa - filed domestic violence charges against PR Venkat Raman, her husband and the child’s father, in August last year, according to court documents accessed by NDTV Wednesday. The father had denied the allegations - made during the couple’s divorce proceedings - in court. The court was scheduled to hear the matter next on January 29.

 

Ms Seth and her husband - the two are in the final stages of their divorce, cops said - were believed to have been fighting over visitation rights, and the child may have been killed because the mother was upset after a court granted the father visitation every Sunday, a senior Goa cop told news agency ANI.

Nidhin Valsan, the North Goa Superintendent of Police, told reporters Ms Seth and her husband, who rushed back from a business trip to Indonesia’s Jakarta. The couple was married in 2010.

Ms Seth, 39, was caught Tuesday while fleeing with the body of her son stuffed into a large bag.

She was arrested in Karnataka’s Chitradurga. This was after staff at the Goa hotel found a bloodstained towel while cleaning her room and alerted the police. The cops contacted the driver of the taxi Ms Seth was taking to Bengaluru and, discreetly, directed him to the nearest police station.

A preliminary examination of the child’s body - which had been stored at a morgue in a Karnataka government hospital - indicated he had been smothered with a pillow and died of suffocation.

"The killing took place over 36 hours ago. His face and chest are swollen due to suffocation, and the child’s nose was bleeding," Dr Kumar Naik, from the Hiriyur Hospital, told reporters Tuesday night.

Dr Naik also said there was no sign of blood loss or marks of struggle.

The body was taken to Bengaluru and the funeral rites have been completed.

Suchana Seth - who may have tried to die by suicide after killing her son, since her wrist was found to have been slashed - has been charged with murder and will be in police custody till next week.

Ms Seth and her son checked into the Sol Banyan Grande service apartment in north Goa’s Candolim on Saturday, January 6. On Monday, January 8, she checked out alone, telling hotel staff (and later the cops, when they first started asking questions) that her child was staying over with a friend.

The staff noticed Ms Seth had a large bag with her, one she did not have when she checked in, but seemed to think nothing of the matter, even after she demanded a taxi drive her to Bengaluru.

The Karnataka capital, where Ms Seth lives, is nearly 600 km from Goa, and the hotel advised her to take a flight - around 90 minutes - instead. However, Ms Seth insisted on a taxi, so it was arranged.

It was only after the staff went to clean her former room that the alarm bells rang; they found a bloodstained towel that the Goa Police was summoned. The cops called the taxi driver on his mobile and, after a few preliminary inquiries failed to satisfy them, directed the car to a police station.