staff members went to clean her room and found bloodstains
An Indian CEO has been arrested for the murder of her four-year-old son at a hotel in Goa.
Suchana Seth, who runs the Bengaluru-based start-up The Mindful AI Lab, was arrested in Karnataka’s Chitradurga.
As she was arrested, police discovered the child’s body in a bag.
Although the motive is not yet known, police suspect that Seth’s relationship with her estranged husband is a possible reason behind the killing.
According to Goa DGP Jashpal Singh, a local court granted the father permission to see the child on Sundays.
However, Seth did not want her estranged husband to see their son.
The couple got married in 2010 and their son was born in 2019. However, constant disputes led the couple to file for divorce a year later.
It is reported that they are in the final stages of divorce proceedings.
Driven by her desire to stop her ex-husband from seeing their son, Suchana Seth allegedly planned a trip to Goa with her son.
She then allegedly killed her child and dumped his body in a bag.
During questioning, Seth told police that she had a strained relationship with her ex-husband and was unhappy over the court order.
The husband was in Indonesia at the time of the murder.
North Goa Superintendent Nidhin Valsan said:
“We have informed him about the murder and asked him to return to India.”
Suchana Seth was arrested in Chitradurga after she travelled with the victim’s body.
She had checked into a hotel in North Goa on January 6 with her son.
Seth asked staff to arrange for a taxi to take her to Bengaluru
Calangute police station inspector Paresh Naik said:
“The staff suggested that she could take a flight to Bengaluru which would be a cheaper option rather than hiring a taxi which is an expensive proposition.”
Seth insisted that she only wanted to travel by taxi. A taxi was arranged on January 8 and she left.
Suspicions arose when staff members went to clean her room and found bloodstains on a towel.
Staff also told police that they did not see the child with Seth when she left the hotel and was also carrying an unusually heavy bag.
An official said: “The accused 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.”
However, officers found out that the provided address was fake.
Police later spoke to the taxi driver and during his journey, took the suspect to the nearest police station.
Seth remains in police custody while the investigation continues.
According to Suchana Seth’s LinkedIn profile, she is an AI ethics expert and data scientist with over 12 years of experience in mentoring data science teams and scaling machine learning solutions at startups.
She is the founder of the technical consultancy company The Mindful AI Lab.
The company provides customised AI ethics advisory services. It also offers to audit AI systems and data practices and co-create responsible AI roadmaps for organisations at all stages of data maturity.
According to the Berkman Klein Centre alum page, Seth holds patents in text mining and natural language processing.
It stated: “She is also passionate about closing the gender gap in data science, and leads data science workshops with organisations like Women Who Code.”
The CEO was also among the top 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics for 2021.
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