PANAJI/BELAGAVI: The Goa murder case, where the CEO of a Bengaluru-based AI startup smothered her four-year-old son, took a new turn on Thursday with the police recovering a knife from the scene of the crime and also a note from the accused’s bag.
Also, serious questions are being raised about the mental condition of Suchana Seth, the accused, given the circumstances that led to the boy’s killing. However, psychiatrists and doctors, who are treating her in Goa, are yet to disclose whether she has a history of mental illness.
The Goa police took Suchana to Goa Medical College and Hospital and the Institute of Psychiatry and Human Behaviour for tests on Thursday. The police have intensified their probe into the case with the recovery of the knife. Preliminary investigations revealed that Seth might have sedated her son by making him drink a cough syrup and then smothered him to death.
It is learnt that the accused had written about the alleged harassment meted out to her by her in-laws in the note recovered from her bag. Meanwhile, sources said that Suchana did not allow her husband Venkat Raman to meet their son in December despite the court granting him visitation rights. On December 7, when she was in Goa, Suchana answered her husband’s video call and it was Raman’s last interaction with his son over the phone.
The sources said Raman had helped her set up the AI startup in Bengaluru. Suchana filed a case against Raman in August 2022, seeking a monthly maintenance of Rs 2.5 lakh.
Suchana’s cab was stuck in jam for 4hrs
A restraining order, granting interim maintenance of Rs 20,000 per month, was issued in her favour in September 2023. Quoting the postmortem report, police sources said that if the boy died in sleep, as claimed by Suchana, then why did she not seek any help or inform the hotel management or doctors?
Why did she stuff her son’s body in the suitcase and lie about his whereabouts? The police sources said Suchana’s cab was stuck in a traffic jam, almost for four hours, at Chorla Ghat on her way to Bengaluru. She would have reached Bengaluru if there was no traffic jam, the sources added.
Meanwhile, Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said the Goa police will take the murder case to its logical end. The Goa police have done a great job so far by cracking the case, he added.