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‘Murder by mother planned’: Cops point to clues from Bengaluru CEO room
Goa police officers said the statements of around 12 witnesses were reconnected, and that a sweep of the room in Sol Banyan Grande hotel in North Goa’s Candolim
Clues from the Goa apartment where a 39-year-old startup founder allegedly smothered her four-year-old son suggest the killing was pre-planned, police said on Wednesday, basing their theory on empty cough syrup bottles found on the premises and the post-mortem report into the morbid crime that has shocked India.
Police also said that Suchana Seth – who allegedly stashed her son’s body in the trunk of a taxi she hired to escape from Goa to Bengaluru before being arrested in a dramatic operation spanning two states – could only be nabbed because her car was held up by a four-hour-long snag on the highway due to an accident.
Seth, who founded the Bengaluru-based firm The Mindful AI in 2020 after stints at Harvard University and Raman Research Institute, is currently in lock-up in Calangute police station after being booked under sections 302 (murder) and 201(destruction of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code, and section 8 of the Goa Children’s Act (Child Abuse and Trafficking).
The boy’s father, PR Venkat Raman, who was locked in hostile divorce and an acrimonious custody battle, returned to India from Indonesia on Wednesday and conducted his son’s last rites in Bengaluru. He will likely join the investigation by the weekend, said police officials.
Read | Will only travel by road: Bengaluru CEO with son's body in bag agreed to pay ₹30,000 to cab driver
Goa police officers said the statements of around 12 witnesses were reconnected, and that a sweep of the room in Sol Banyan Grande hotel in North Goa’s Candolim, where Seth checked in on January 6, revealed two empty bottles of Benadryl cough syrup.
“Both bottles were procured from the hotel reception and were empty, likely administered to the child…We suspect that this was a pre-planned murder. Further interrogation of the accused will throw some more light on the matter,” a senior police officer in charge of the probe said, requesting anonymity.
Hotel manager Gagan Gambhir’s statement to the police said that on January 7 at around 4pm, Seth ordered two bottles of Benadryl syrup, claiming she was suffering from a cough. The police have preserved the viscera of the boy to confirm the consumption of the cough syrup, and are also now looking at Seth’s call detail records.
The post-mortem report of the child carried out on Tuesday night at a Chitradurga hospital said the child was likely smothered to death using a pillow. “The face and chest are swollen due to suffocation and the nose was bleeding. The boy has died due to smothering or strangulation. A pillow was likely used and it is unlikely hands were used… It is natural for a child to struggle during strangulation, but there are no evident signs of the same, and there are no signs of scratches on the body,” Naik told reporters.
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The grisly crime was unearthed when Seth was nabbed in Karnataka’s Chitrdadurga district on Monday afternoon, around 160km from Bengaluru, after a dramatic operation that involved Goa police officers contacting the driver of the Toyota Innova she had hurriedly arranged, speaking to him in Konkani, and telling him to drive to the nearest police station, after they had been tipped off by hotel staff who had spotted bloodstains in the room.
But further interrogation of the cab driver revealed that the six-hour operation’s success hinged on the unlikeliest of circumstances – a traffic jam on the highway.
At midnight on January 8, Seth insisted that a taxi be arranged for her to drive to Bengaluru, despite being told by hotel staff that flights would be cheaper. Roy John D’Souza was then contacted and agreed to make the journey for a fare of ₹30,000.
“We encountered a traffic jam along the Chorla ghat on account of a truck accident. At the time, I had stepped out of the car and asked the police there how long it would take to clear. They said three to four hours. I informed her of the situation and offered to drive her back to the Goa airport from where she could catch a flight. But she refused and said she wants to get to Bengaluru no matter how long it took,” D Souza told HT.
The next morning, D’Souza received a phone call from the Goa Police at around 10.45-11am, when he was asked to hand the phone to Seth. By then, the police were already suspicious about the whereabouts of the boy and asked Seth where he was. She gave the police a fake address and said she had dropped him off there.
When that didn’t check out, D’Souza received another call at around noon when they were in Chitradurga. During that call, in which officers spoke to him in Konkani so that Seth wouldn’t follow the conversation, D’Souza was told to drive to the nearest police station.
“I checked on Google maps and it said the nearest police station was 150km behind. I had a reserve driver by my side who I had brought along if I were to feel sleepy along the way. I asked him to pretend to want to go to the washroom. I stopped the car at a roadside restaurant and while he was gone, she asked me why we had stopped. I said he needed to use the washroom. I also got out of the car and went to the desk and asked the waiter where the nearest police station was. He said it was just 500 metres at Aimangla ahead next to a mosque,” D’Souza said.
He then got back on the phone with the Calangute Police and told them to stay on the line. “When I reached the police station, I handed the phone to the police sub inspector. Even at this point she didn’t ask why we were stopping at a police station. She was expressionless. Through the journey she did not receive or make any calls,” he said.
At Aimangla police station, Seth’s luggage was checked, and the body of her son was recovered. “The police at Aimangala police station were very cooperative and they opened the luggage while video recording and in the presence of witnesses. The body of the boy was found in the large red colour trolley bag with no external injuries but a swollen face and blue lips,” a Goa police officer said, requesting anonymity.
On Wednesday, Goa Police took Seth for a medical examination at the Goa Medical College and Hospital. “She has expressed no remorse for her act, but is crying that her son is no more,” a senior police officer said, requesting anonymity. Bloodstains found by the police on the floor and a bandage on her left arm could also point to an attempt by Seth to slash her wrists, the officer quoted above said.
