A 39-year-old startup founder and CEO from Bengaluru was on Monday charged with murdering her four-year-old son in a service apartment in North Goa’s Candolim and hiring a taxi to travel back to Karnataka with the child’s body in a bag.
The shocking crime, for which investigators are yet to find a motive, unravelled after a member of the housekeeping staff found a bloodstain while cleaning the apartment from which Suchana Seth had checked out on Monday morning. Based on an alert from the Goa Police, she was detained at Aimangala police station in Karnataka’s Chitradurga district. A police team from Calangute was on its way to Karnataka late on Monday to take custody of Suchana and bring her to Goa on transit remand.
A police team from Calangute was on its way to Karnataka late Monday to take custody of Suchana Seth and bring her to Goa on transit remand.
Inspector Paresh Naik of Calangute police station told TOI that Suchana gave a Bengaluru address while checking into room 404 at Candolim’s Hotel Sol Banyan Grande on Saturday. The hotel staff told police that when Suchana wanted a taxi to return to Bengaluru, she was advised that flying back would be cheaper and more convenient. When she insisted on travelling by road, the hotel arranged a local taxi.
North Goa SP Nidhin Valsan said that on being informed about the bloodstain around 11am, a police team reached the hotel and scanned the CCTV footage, which purportedly shows Suchana leaving the service apartment without her son. Inspector Naik said he called the taxi driver and asked him to give the phone to Suchana. On being questioned about her son, Suchana claimed to have left him at a friend’s house in Fatorda. Asked to give the friend’s address, she sent details that were found to be fake.
Naik then called the taxi driver again, this time speaking to him in Konkani and asking him to visit a nearby police station without the passenger suspecting anything. The taxi had entered Chitradurga district by then.
The driver apparently steered the car to Aimangala police station without Suchana getting a whiff of the plan. Naik’s suspicion came true when an officer there checked the car and found the body of the child in a bag.
