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Video Editors: Purnendu Pritam, Abhishek Sharma
From speaking to the police in Konkani to taking a washroom break to buy more time to find the nearest police station and trying not to raise any suspicion – 33-year-old Royjohn D'Souza's presence of mind was crucial in helping the Goa Police nab Suchana Seth, who has been accused of killing her four-year-old son.
D'Souza, a Goa-based cab driver who was ferrying Seth – the CEO of an AI startup – to Bengaluru on the intervening night of 7 and 8 January, tells The Quint over the phone on Friday, 12 January:
Earlier this week, the Calangute Police arrested 39-year-old Seth for allegedly murdering her child at a service apartment in Candolim, North Goa. She was arrested in Karnataka's Chitradurga district while allegedly trying to flee with her son's body stuffed in a bag.
At around 11 pm on 7 January, D'Souza received a call from the reception of Hotel Sol Banyan Grande in Candolim, where Seth was residing.
"They asked me to arrange a cab for her on an urgent basis. Since it was a long journey, my co-driver and I asked for Rs 30,000, which she agreed to pay. We reached the hotel at 12:30 am," he said.
D'Souza told The Quint that Seth was travelling with a red trolley bag, which he described as being "unusually heavy."
According to the driver, the cab left from Candolim at around 12:45 am. However, they got stuck at the Goa-Karnataka border at 2 am as a truck had overturned, causing major traffic jam, he said.
D'Souza said that he told Seth they could be stuck in the jam for "six hours" – and asked if he could drop her to the airport instead.
D'Souza told The Quint that Seth was "extremely calm" throughout the journey and did not "speak a word," apart from asking him if he wanted water.
"She barely slept in the 10-hour journey and was looking out of the window," he claimed.
At around 10:45 am, the taxi driver received a call from the Goa Police, alerting him that there was something suspicious about the passenger.
However, D'Souza recounted that Seth was calm even after the phone call – and she "did not seem to panic."
Twenty minutes later, at around 11:10 am, D'Souza told The Quint that the police had contacted him again, this time speaking in their local language Konkani.
D'Souza said he stopped by a roadside restaurant and told Seth that they wanted to stop to use the restroom.
"We remained calm throughout as we knew that we could not let her get suspicious of us. Once we stopped, I asked the locals about a police station. Thankfully, it was only 500 metres away," he said.
According to the taxi driver, the police searched the entire car and found the child's body inside her red bag.
The Goa Police has recovered a handwritten "note," allegedly written by Seth on a tissue paper using eyeliner, which could be "crucial evidence" in the investigation, several reports said.
Police officials told Hindustan Times that the note could help ascertain Seth's mental state and motivations.
Earlier, police officials told The Quint that Seth had allegedly committed the crime to due to strained relations with her estranged husband Venkataraman and a custody battle for their son.
Seth and her husband Venkataraman got married in 2010 and had their son in 2019, as per reports. The couple had been living apart since 2021 and had been fighting for the custody of their son. Recently, a Bengaluru court gave her husband visitation rights as well.
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