Start-up CEO kills her 4-yr-old son in Goa, held

PTI

Panaji, January 9

The chief executive officer of an artificial intelligence start-up allegedly killed her four-year-old son at a service apartment in Goa and stuffed his body in a bag before taking it to neighbouring Karnataka in a taxi, the police said on Tuesday.

Soon after the gruesome crime that took place between January 6 and 8, the accused woman, Suchana Seth, also tried to end her life by cutting her wrist with a sharp object, they said, adding that the motive behind the murder is not yet clear.

Seth was arrested from Chitradurga in Karnataka on Monday night and brought to Goa on Tuesday. A court in Mapusa town remanded her in police custody for six days, an official said.

The accused has told the police that she and her husband were estranged and their divorce proceedings were currently underway.

According to Seth’s LinkedIn page, she is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of start-up Mindful AI Lab and was among the top “100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics for 2021”.

“She checked into a service apartment at Candolim in North Goa on January 6 along with her son,” Calangute police station inspector Paresh Naik said.

After staying there for two days, she informed the apartment staff that she wanted to go to Bengaluru for some work and asked them to arrange for a taxi, he said. The accused insisted that she would travel by taxi only, and accordingly a vehicle was arranged on January 8 in which she left early in the morning. Later, when the apartment staff went to clean the room in which she stayed, they found blood stains on a towel.

“The management of the apartment immediately informed the Calangute police. The staff also informed that the woman’s son was not seen with her when she left the apartment and she was also carrying an unusually heavy bag,” he said.

“The police then called the accused, who told us that the blood stains were due to her monthly periods. She also told us that her son was with her friend in Margao town (in South Goa) and provided the address,” the official said.

Naik said he immediately took the help of the Fatorda police (near Margao) and got to know the address given by her was fake. The inspector later called up the taxi driver, who was on way to Bengaluru, and asked him to take the accused to the nearest police station. The police in Chitradurga checked the woman’s bag in which they found the body of the child.

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