Start-up CEO murdered her son in Goa, went to Karnataka with the body, arrested

Panaji: A 39-year-old executive director of a fledgling company allegedly killed her four-year-old son in Goa and then took his body to neighboring Karnataka, a police officer said on Tuesday. It said that Goa Police arrested the accused Suchana Seth of Chitradurga, Karnataka on Sunday night, adding that the motive for the murder is not yet known. According to Seth’s LinkedIn page, she is the executive director (CEO) of the new company Mindful AI Lab and was one of the “100 Brightest Women in AI Ethics for 2021”. She registered with her son at a rented service apartment in Candolim in North Goa on January 6, said Paresh Naik, inspector of Calangute police commissionerate. After staying there for two days, he said, he told the apartment staff that he wanted to go to Bengaluru for work and asked them to take a taxi. “The person suggested we could take a flight to Bengaluru, which would be a cheaper option than hiring a taxi, which is an expensive proposition,” he said. Later, when apartment staff went to clean the room where he lived, they found blood stains on the towels, Naik said. “The direction of the apartment immediately informed Calangute police, who reached the spot,” he said. The personal also reported that when the woman came out of the apartment, her four-year-old son was not seen with her and she was also carrying an unusually heavy bag, he said. Then, the police called the accused and asked him about the blood stains and his “missing” son. “The accused told us that the blood stains were due to her menstruation. “We also told him that his son was with his friend in Margao town (in south Goa) and he gave us directions,” the officer said. Naik said he immediately sought help from Fatorda (near Margao) police and discovered that the instructions given by him were wrong. Later, the inspector spoke on phone to the taxi driver, who was going to Bengaluru, to take the accused to the nearest police commissionerate and reached Chitradurga district in Karnataka. Naik said, Chitradurga police checked the woman’s bag and found the child’s body. Then, a team of Calangute police reached Chitradurga and took preventive custody of the accused en route, who was transferred to Goa. Naik said, the post-mortem of the body will be done in Chitradurga. He said that the police informed the accused husband Venkat Raman, who is currently in Jakarta, about the incident.