Bengaluru CEO Suchana Seth allegedly strangled son to death, reveals autopsy

Meanwhile, Seth’s estranged husband Venkatraman, who hails from Kerala, and his relatives arrived in Chitradurga from Indonesia on Tuesday night.

Related: Bengaluru CEO kills 4-year-old son in Goa, travels with body to Karnataka

Body cremated

After the medico-legal procedures, the father collected the mortal remains, in the presence of Goa Police, and left for Bengaluru.

He had brought his son’s body from Chitradurga to an apartment in the city where the initial rituals took place.

The child’s body was taken to the Harishchandra Ghat at Rajaji Nagar, where Venkatraman performed the last rites on Wednesday.

Based on a complaint by the owner of the Goan hotel where Seth was staying, an FIR has been registered at Goa’s Calangute Police Station.

On the other hand, the Goa police produced Seth before a Panjim court on Tuesday and remanded her in police custody for six days.

Prima facie, Seth’s strained relationship with her husband is being suspected to be the motive for the gruesome crime. Suchana was on the verge of getting a divorce from Venkatraman, according to the Goa Police.

Meanwhile, Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said that the police are conducting a thorough investigation of the matter.

“The culprit has been arrested and the police department is doing the followup on the case. They will get to the end of this matter,” the chief minister told reporters.

Related: Who is Suchana Seth, the Bengaluru firm CEO accused of murdering son?

Manner of death

Hiriyur Taluka Hospital Administrative Officer Dr Kumar Naik said on Tuesday that the post-mortem examination revealed that the boy was strangled to death.

The incident occurred in a service apartment in Goa on the intervening night of 7 and 8 January.

Seth, the founder of AI start-up The Mindful Lab, was apprehended at Aimangala in Chitradurga, Karnataka, on Monday afternoon while heading to Bengaluru from Goa.

Meanwhile, the Goa Police found two empty bottles of cough syrup in the room where the boy was allegedly killed, indicating that his mother might have given him a heavy dose of the medicine and that it was a planned murder, an official said.

“He (the child) was smothered to death with a piece of cloth or a pillow,” Naik told reporters.

“It doesn’t look like the child was strangulated with hands. It looks like a pillow or some other material was used. Rigor mortis had set in when the body was found,” he added.

“We cannot say the exact time but we feel the body was found at least 36 hours after his death. There were no injuries on the body,” Naik further said.

According to police sources, the accused denied any involvement in the crime during interrogation and claimed the child was already dead when she got up from sleep.

“We don’t buy her theory. Further investigation will reveal the motive behind killing the child. As of now, we know that she and her husband were estranged because of which she might have done this,” a senior police official said.

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Final rites conducted in Bengaluru

The boy’s final rites were conducted at Yeshwanthpur in Bengaluru, on Wednesday.

The boy’s father, Venkatraman, collected the mortal remains of his son accompanied at Hiriyur, and took it to Bengaluru.

On Wednesday morning, Venkatraman, along with his relatives, performed the boy’s last rites at a graveyard in Yeshwanthpur.

Venkatraman refused to speak to the media. Meanwhile, his relatives appealed to the media not to breach their privacy.

“He is his father. Please give him some time,”  they said.

They also refrained from commenting on the relationship between Venkatraman and Seth.

(With PTI inputs)