Suchana Seth, CEO of the Bengaluru-based AI startup who was arrested in January 2024 for allegedly murdering her four-year-old son in a Goa hotel, was on Tuesday charged with assaulting a woman police constable inside the Central Jail, where she is currently lodged.
Police said the altercation began after Seth “took the inward register of ladies prisoner block without permission,” and when questioned, she allegedly hurled abuses at the constable “with filthy words and further pushed and assaulted her with kicks and pulled her hair, thereby causing her bodily injuries.”
Seth has been booked under Section 121(1) (voluntarily causing hurt or grievous hurt to deter a public servant from duty) and Section 352 (intentional insult with the intention to provoke) of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita.
Who is Suchana Seth, and what are charges against her?
- Suchana Seth is an AI ethics expert and data scientist with over 12 years of experience in the tech and research sectors, according to her LinkedIn profile.
- She is the founder and CEO of Mindful AI Lab and has been featured on the 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics List. Her professional journey includes roles as a Mozilla Fellow at Data & Society, Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University, Research Fellow at the Raman Research Institute, Senior Data Scientist at Boomerang Commerce, and Senior Analyst at InterpretOmics. She also holds patents in natural language processing.
- The AI startup CEO has been in prison since her arrest from Chitradurga, Karnataka, in January 2024. She was caught while travelling back to Bengaluru in a taxi with her four-year-old son's body stuffed in a suitcase.
- Seth had checked into a service apartment in Candolim, North Goa, on January 6 with her son and asked for a taxi to Bengaluru two days later. When staff suggested a flight as a cheaper option, she insisted on a taxi. After she left on January 8, staff found blood-stained towels in her room and alerted the police, noting that she left with an unusually heavy bag and her son was not seen.
- Seth claimed the blood was from her period and that her son was with a friend in Margao, but the address turned out to be fake. Police contacted the taxi driver and asked him to take her to the nearest station, where her son's body was found in her bag.
- A note found in her luggage hinted at frustration over a custody battle, with a message suggesting she didn’t want anyone else to have her child. She was charged under IPC sections 302 (murder), 201 (destruction of evidence), and Section 8 of the Goa Children’s Act.