Published Jan 19, 2024 | 6:24 PM ⚊ Updated Jan 19, 2024 | 6:24 PM
File photo of Suchana Seth. (Supplied)
The children’s court in Goa on Friday, 19 January, remanded Suchana Seth, the chief executive officer of an artificial intelligence (AI) start-up who is accused of killing her four-year-old son, in judicial custody for 13 days.
Seth had been in police custody since 8 January. After her extended remand of five days came to an end, she was produced in the court in Panaji by the Calangute police.
As the police did not seek further remand, the court sent her to 13 days of judicial custody.
A lawyer representing Seth said the police did not ask for any further remand from the court, after which she was sent to the judicial custody. He said his client has not filed for bail so far.
After being presented in the court, Seth was taken to the Central Jail at Colvale in North Goa.
Seth has been booked under various sections, including murder, destruction of evidence, and Section 8 of the Goa Children’s Act.
Seth (39) was arrested from Chitradurga in Karnataka on 8 January while she was travelling in the taxi from Goa to Bengaluru with her son’s body stuffed in a bag, and brought back to Goa. A court in Mapusa town remanded her in police custody for six days.
She is accused of killing the child in a Candolim-based service apartment.
The Calangute police in Goa are done with the spot mahajar (inspection) at the service apartment in Candolim where she allegedly smothered her four-year-old son to death, police sources had told South First earlier.
The police had taken Seth to the service apartment — where the murder allegedly took place — to recreate the crime scene. However, they said she was not cooperating with them.
“She is not consistent with her statements. Initially, she said she would talk only after her lawyer came, and then she admitted to killing her son. However she later told the police she had not killed her son,” said the Goa Police sources.
The blood stains the police found in the apartment room were not her son’s but hers as she had attempted to die by suicide by cutting her wrist, the police sources added.
According to the police, Seth and her four-year-old son checked into the service apartment in Candolim’s Hotel Sol Banyan Grande, booking via Airbnb, on 6 January.
The killing is said to have occurred inside the service apartment on the intervening night of 7 and 8 January, even as Seth demanded an immediate checkout from the hotel, insisting on a taxi to head to Bengaluru.
Meanwhile, chilling details have emerged through the statements of taxi driver Ray John, who drove Seth from Goa to Karnataka in his car. It was he who helped the police nab Seth, said the Goa Police.
John said the service apartment staff booked his taxi for Seth. “When I reached the service apartment, she (Seth) asked me to carry her bag from the reception to the taxi. It was heavy,” the taxi driver said.
“I asked her whether we could remove some belongings from the bag to make it lighter. But she refused. We had to drag the bag to the boot of the car,” said John.
John said that he later received a call from the Goa Police alerting him that there was something suspicious about his passenger.
“The Calangute police told me to search for a nearby police station and take her there. I tried searching on Google Maps and GPS but didn’t find any. I even looked for cops at toll plazas but there were none,” he said.
Alarmed by the call from the police, the taxi driver said he bought some more time by stopping by a roadside restaurant. There he learnt that a police station was just 500 metres away.
The cops also stumbled upon a crumpled note in her vanity bag, and a senior police official confirmed as much.
“We would not like to disclose the content of the note but it indicates that she was upset over the custody of her child,” he said.
According to Seth’s LinkedIn page, she is the CEO of the start-up Mindful AI Lab and was among the top “100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics for 2021”.
(With PTI inputs)
