Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Wednesday said that the investigation is continuing into the case in which a four-year-old boy in Goa was murdered allegedly by his mother who was subsequently arrested from Karnataka’s Chitradurga.
“As soon as the police found something suspicious, that woman was immediately arrested. An investigation is going on, and police will reach the very end of the case,” Sawant said. On Tuesday, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a start-up company in Bengaluru identified as Suchana Seth was arrested for allegedly murdering her minor son at a hotel in Goa.
Police said that the accused woman was caught in Karnataka’s Chitradurga district while trying to flee in a cab with her son’s body stuffed in a bag. “A woman asked the hotel staff to arrange a taxi for Bengaluru. After the checkout, when the hotel staff went to clean the room, they found red-coloured stains, which they assumed to be blood. The staff immediately informed the police,” said Nidhin Valsan, Superintendent of Police, North Goa.
The police official said that the accused seemed unhappy with a recent court order that permitted her husband to spend time with their child on Sundays.
“Goa court remands mother to six-day police custody. The father identified the boy and he said that they got married in 2010 and their divorce proceedings started in 2022. Recently, the court issued an order to spend time with the father on Sunday. During interrogation with our investigating officers, the accused woman seemed to be unhappy with the court order,” SP Valsan said.
Mother denies murder, police says pre-planned
Panaji: The Goa police have found empty bottles of a cough syrup in a room where the CEO of a start-up allegedly killed her four-year-old son, indicating she might have given a heavy dose of the medicine to him and that it was pre-planned murder, an official said on Wednesday.
The postmortem has revealed the child was smothered to death either with a cloth or a pillow, as per officials.
The accused woman, Suchana Seth, allegedly killed her son in the apartment at Candolim in Goa and stuffed the body in a bag before taking it to neighbouring Karnataka in a taxi, police said.
She was arrested from Chitradurga in Karnataka on Monday night and brought to Goa on Tuesday.
A senior police officer told Press Trust of India that during the inspection of the service apartment room where the woman stayed, they found two empty bottles (one big and another small) of a cough syrup.
“The post-mortem conducted on the body has indicated the possibility that the child might have been smothered to death and there were no signs of struggle,” he said.
“We are examining the possibility if the woman gave a heavy dose of cough syrup to the child before putting him to death,” the official said.
Enquiries with the service apartment staff revealed the woman had asked them to buy a small bottle of a cough syrup claiming she was having cough, he said, adding the bigger bottle might have been carried by her. “It looks like a pre-planned murder,” the official said.
According to police sources, the accused has denied her involvement in the crime during the interrogation and claimed the child was already dead when she got up from sleep.
“We don’t buy her theory. Further investigation will reveal the motive behind killing the child. As of now, we know that she and her husband were estranged because of which she might have done this,” a senior police official said.
Suchana Seth checked in the service apartment on January 6 and stayed there till January 8 before leaving for Bengaluru in a taxi.
