Suchana Seth, the CEO of a Bengaluru-based startup accused of killing her four-year-old son, was in the midst of an ongoing divorce and custody battle. Seth had filed a case of domestic violence against her estranged husband Venkataraman PR.
She accused her husband of physically assaulting the child who had also been undergoing treatment at NIMHANS’s adolescent psychiatry centre in Bengaluru.
The family court of Bengaluru’s Metropolitan Magistrate after hearing the case issued a restraining order on August 18, 2022, against Venkataraman. The order barred him from communicating with the child either by phone or any other media.
The court directed that the father of the child should pay interim maintenance of Rs 20,000 per month to the petitioner from the date of the order till the disposal of the petition; Venkatraman had since paid Rs 60,000 as maintenance between September and November to his estranged wife. Suchana had demanded a monthly maintenance of Rs 2.5 lakh.
The next hearing of the case had been scheduled by the court for January 29.
In her petition, Seth had said that she was forced to stay separately for fear of violence and abuse by her husband. She claimed that he did not take care of her during her pregnancy and “did not show any interest in married life, was mentally and emotionally imbalanced”, adding that frequent calls from Venkatraman’s parents affected their family life.
‘Prima facie case of sexual abuse’
The court, after scrutinising documents submitted by Seth to substantiate her domestic violence case, had observed that prima facie it appeared to be a case of sexual abuse by the husband Venkataraman.
She had also alleged that the marital relationship had not been smooth from the beginning of their marriage, and “When the child was in his (Venkatraman) custody, he injured the child”, according to the petition, which also added that the abusive behaviour led to the child developing a sense of fear against the father.
Venkatraman had denied all charges levelled against him by Seth.
Having heard both sides of the case, the court then directed the husband to hand over all the toys and clothes of the child to the mother.
Seth had married Venkataraman on November 18, 2010, as per Hindu rituals in Kolkata. Their son was born on August 14, 2019. Her petition states that from March 2020 she had been forced to stay separately due to violence and abuse.
Suchana ‘uncooperative’ with Goa police
Seth is presently in six days of police custody in Goa. Even during questioning, she is said to be uncooperative and refuses to answer any questions until her lawyer is present there.
She has, however, denied any involvement in the murder case. “Even when she had been detained by the Chitradurga police where the body of the child was found stuffed in a bag in the boot of the car she was travelling in, she refused to speak to the Karnataka police but broke down in tears on the discovery of the body,” said a Hiriyur police official.
The Goa police have found two bottles of cough syrup which were allegedly used to heavily drug the child until he became unconscious.
The Goa police had also found a towel in the room with bloodstains on it. It has been sent to the FSL in Goa to determine whether it belonged to Seth or the child.
Was Suchana sitting with son’s body in hotel?
Senior government doctor Kumar Naik, who conducted the post-mortem on the child, observed that he may have been killed 36 hours before the body was found, as rigour mortis (stiffening of muscles in a corpse) had not set in yet.
“He has been smothered or strangulated, and there are no signs of struggle. What was observed as most striking was that there were many impressions on the child’s neck and face. This indicated that there was immense pressure put on that area. Apart from that the veins in the chest and abdomen areas had also swollen up, which is typical of a case of strangulation,” he told News18.
Another investigating officer shared that the post-mortem indicating that the murder could have taken place 36 hours before the body was found indicated that the act may have been committed during the early morning hours of January 8. “She may have been sitting with the body inside the room the whole day and plotting how to take the body out or dispose of it. More will be known during the investigations,” the official added.
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