Suchana Seth, a 39-year-old Bengaluru start-up founder and CEO of Mindful AI Lab, allegedly murdered her four-year-old son in Goa before fleeing to Karnataka, where she was subsequently apprehended.
Seth was arrested in Karnataka’s Chitradurga on Monday, found with her son’s body in a bag. The tragic incident unfolded in a Candolim apartment in north Goa. The motive behind the shocking crime remains unknown, but police suspect the strained relationship between Seth and her husband, Venkat Raman, might be a possible reason for the tragic act.
Seth, a native of West Bengal, checked into Sol Banyan Grande in North Goa’s Candolim with her son on Saturday while her husband, employed as an AI developer, was in Indonesia. On Monday, she checked out alone, requesting a taxi to Bengaluru despite suggestions to take a flight.
Hotel staff noticed the child’s absence, and bloodstains were discovered in the apartment after Seth’s departure. The Goa police were alerted, and upon questioning, Seth claimed her son was with a friend, providing a fake address.
Suspecting foul play, the police instructed the taxi driver, in Konkani, to divert to the nearest police station in Chitradurga, where Seth was arrested. The body of her son was found inside the bag she carried. Police have summoned Seth’s husband back to India, and she has been transported back to Goa for further investigation.
According to her LinkedIn page, Suchana Seth was recognized among the top “100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics for 2021.” With over 12 years of experience as a data scientist and a fellowship at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Centre, Seth played a prominent role in mentoring data science teams and scaling machine learning solutions in various start-ups and industry research labs.