Accused of killing her 4-year-old son, Suchana Seth, a CEO of an AI start-up in Bengaluru, was made to confront her estranged husband by the authorities on Saturday. The couple, embroiled in a divorce battle and domestic violence case, confronted each other for 15 minutes.
The brief confrontation between the two, at Goa police station, was nothing short of a blame-game and verbal argument.
The estranged husband, Venkat, who was abroad when the alleged murder was committed in Goa’s service apartment, said that he felt that the child must have expressed his wish to meet his father and that would have led to Suchana killing the son in a fit of rage.
As part of the nearly finalised divorce, the father was restricted from meeting their son. And under the terms of a restraining order issued on August 18, 2022, the husband was prohibited from entering Suchana Seth’s house or contacting her son via phone or any other medium.
The father, though, was reportedly allowed weekly visitation rights to his son, which upset Suchana Seth, as per sources. Also, Suchana filed a domestic violence case against Venkat, accusing him of physically abusing her. He has denied these allegations before court earlier.
Suchana Seth, however, despite a court order, did not allow Venkat to meet the child, and he had last met his son on December 10.
During the brief confrontation between the two on Saturday, the two were blaming each other for everything that has gone wrong. When Venkat asked about the alleged murder of their child, Suchana Seth said that she didn’t know anything about their son’s death.
Suchana Seth, during the confrontation, gave a similar answer that she had been giving to the police. As per her statements, she fell asleep when the child, at the service apartment in Goa, was alive and when she woke up, the child was found dead.
Venkat further told the authorities that Suchana Seth had asked him to meet the child on January 7, and he went to the decided location and waited, but the child and Suchana didn’t turn up. Following that, he tried to get in touch with her, but there was no response.
“He (Venkat) also asked about their well-being in the messages and emails, but she didn’t respond,” Venkat’s lawyer said.
On the other hand, Suchana Seth has pinned the onus on her estranged spouse for circumstances leading to the incident. This was for the first time after the murder that Suchana Seth and her husband Venkat Raghavan came face to face.
The couple tied the knot in 2010 in Kolkata, and their son, now deceased, was born in August 2019. Court documents, as accessed by India Today, revealed that Suchana Seth had filed a domestic violence case against Venkata Raman PR in August 2022.
Suchana Seth was arrested on Monday while she was en route to Bengaluru from Goa. A Goa court sent her to six-day police custody after her arrest. A detailed probe into the chilling murder case is underway.