Did Bengaluru CEO Suchana Seth ‘kill’ her son to stop him from meeting his father?

The murder of a four-year-old boy from Bengaluru has sent shockwaves across the country. The killer is his mother. Suchana Seth is a 39-year-old CEO of a Bengaluru-based startup, The Mindful AI Lab.

The accused allegedly killed her son on the intervening night of 7 and 8 January in a service apartment hotel in North Goa’s Candolim. She then stuffed the body in a bag and loaded it into a taxi, which she had hailed for Bengaluru.

The Goa Police arrested her in neighbouring Karnataka after the hotel staff informed it that they found blood stains on towels in the room where she was staying.

But how and why did Suchana Seth kill her son? And what has been revealed about the shocking murder since she has been arrested?

Also read: Who is Suchana Seth, the Bengaluru CEO who allegedly killed 4-year-old son?

The murder and the intent

The 39-year-old Bengaluru-based data scientist and startup founder reportedly smothered her son to death. The four-year-old was smothered with a pillow and died of suffocation, doctors at Hiriyur Hospital in Karnataka said after a preliminary examination of the body.

Dr Kumar Naik, who was in charge of the postmortem examination, told the media, “The child could have probably died after being suffocated by a pillow or some other object. He doesn’t seem like he was killed by strangulation using hands.”

“The killing took place over 36 hours ago. His face and chest are swollen due to suffocation. And the child’s nose was bleeding,” he added.

According to Dr Kumar, the body did not show signs of rigor mortis, the stiffening of the limbs of a corpse caused by chemical changes in the muscles. This indicates that the murder took place at least 36 hours before it came to light.

Also read: CCTV footage, bloodstains, clever cabbie: How cops nabbed CEO who killed son

Seth had strained ties with her husband. The duo was fighting over the custody of their child.

Superintendent of Police (North Goa) Nidhin Valsan said that divorce proceedings have been in progress since 2022 between Seth and her husband, who was in Indonesia at the time of the murder. He has now returned.

The accused’s trigger could have been a court order granting her estranged husband visiting rights to meet the son every Sunday, police sources said, according to a report in ThePrint. She wanted “to keep the boy away from the father”.

Seth allegedly planned to kill the boy a day before the scheduled meeting, said sources, reports India Today.

The accused did not allow the father to visit her son for five weeks since a recent court order by a Bengaluru family. She reportedly came to Goa over the weekend to ensure that another day was missed.

During interrogation with our investigating officers, the accused woman seemed to be unhappy with the court order,” Valsan told news agency ANI.

According to the police, the woman mentioned her troubled relationship with her husband and that their divorce was nearly finalised during the initial inquiry.

“…There was also a court order causing distress to her. Interrogation is ongoing, and we are required to present her before the court. The motive is yet to be confirmed; this is what she conveyed to our investigators. We need to review the court order before making further statements,” Vaslan was quoted as saying by India Today.

Seth married Venkat Raman in 2010 and they had a son in 2019 after which differences cropped up. “According to her husband’s statement, soon after the birth of their son, she became possessive of the child and they started having frequent fights. Soon after, the couple separated and they have not been in touch for the past two years,” a senior officer told The Indian Express.

An attempted suicide

Seth tried to die by suicide after the murder. After smothering her son to death in a room at the service apartment in Candolim, she reportedly cut her left wrist with a sharp object, a senior police officer told news agency PTI.

The police official said that the blood stains found on a towel in the apartment were because of the slashing of her wrist.

“There was no murder weapon. She allegedly tried to kill herself by slitting her wrists using a pair of scissors. Blood samples have been collected and a DNA test will be done to verify this,” the officer was quoted as saying by The Indian Express.

Police said that when they called Seth while she was heading to Karnataka, questioning about the blood in her hotel room, she first claimed it was because of her periods. She even offered to pay for the cleaning.

The questioning

During questioning, Seth claimed that she did not kill her son. “She claimed her son was asleep and she did not know how he died,” said the officer.

“The accused claimed she didn’t intend to kill her son and that she loved him but he suddenly died. She then got scared and sat near the body. She also told us that she got a cut on her hand,” an official was quoted as saying by The Times of India.

After being detained in Karnataka, Seth was arrested and brought to Goa on transmit remand on Tuesday. She was produced in a court in Mapusa, which remanded her in police custody for six days.