When techies turn killers: Lifting the lid on Silicon City's dark underbelly

M.K. Ashoka

Bengaluru, Jan 13 (IANS) The gory details of the arrest of 39-year-old Suchana Seth, CEO of a Bengaluru-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) start-up company, on charges of killing her son and transporting the body stuffed in a suitcase, have sent shockwaves across the nation. 

The case has sparked a debate and raised many questions about how a mother could turn into a cold-blooded killer.

Bengaluru, the 'Silicon City', has been witnessing cruel murders of spouses and own children by techies with horrifying brutality, raising questions about education that made them super brains but, at the same time, failed to teach simple humanity.

August 6, 2023: Veerarjuna Vinay, a 31-year-old software employee, killed his wife Hemavathi (29) and two daughters, Moksha Meghanayana (2) and eight-month-old Srushti Sunayana, before committing suicide in Bengaluru.

They all lived in the Sai Garden apartment in Seegehalli, located in the tech corridor of Bengaluru. Vinay, a native of Andhra Pradesh, married Hemavathi six years ago and worked as a team lead at a city-based software company.

January 12, 2011: Professional complications and depression led a 31-year-old software engineer, Santosh Sarade, working with Infosys, to end his life after killing his one-and-a-half-year-old daughter Riya.

Santosh allegedly strangled Riya with a towel and hung her on the window grills with a curtain. Later, he hung himself from the ceiling fan in the same room. The shocking incident was reported at his flat in Garudadri Apartment on Kudlu Main Road in Parappana Agrahara police limits in Bengaluru.

The techie is said to be under the influence of alcohol when he took the extreme step due to depression, having resigned from his work on May 16. A native of Bidar district, Santosh was married to a techie.

November 28, 2022: Bengaluru police arrested a 45-year-old software engineer who allegedly killed his two-year-old daughter, claiming that he did not have money to feed her.

The accused, Rahul Parmar, is a native of Gujarat. He attempted to end his life after killing his daughter but later went around Karnataka before the police caught up with him.

August 20, 2023: An Indian techie couple, Yogesh H. Nagarajappa (37) and Prathiba Y. Amarnath (37), along with their six-year-old child Yash Honnal, were found dead in the US state of Maryland in a suspected case of double suicide-murder.

The family, originally from Karnataka, were found dead with gunshot wounds in their Baltimore County home. The incident is believed to be a double murder-suicide that Nagarajappa committed.

Speaking to IANS about the disturbing trend in the backdrop of Suchana Seth's case, senior psychologist Dr. A. Sridhara said: “It can be seen as the anguish, frustration, and outrage against a husband and helplessness in not being able to hurt him but deciding to teach a lesson to him by punishing one’s offspring. This can be called projection.

"In a way, it can also manifest the violent and aggressive behaviour of the spouse getting reflected on the child. Here the mind-set would be, let the person suffer, and hence his biological extension is punished.

"As a parent, love and compassion don’t matter under the circumstances once you come into such a mind-set. Looking at this case, it could be called a mental disease as they don’t have emotions of love and sympathy like normal human beings, and they will be on the weaker side of mental stability."

He further said that the important matter here is the child lost its life due to anger towards his father.

"She took it all out on her child. She was never a mother. Probably, she was not inclined for a child naturally and got the baby. Perhaps, she could have disliked the marriage so much there is no way to punish the partner but will indirectly punish him by eliminating the child he loves."

Sridhara also explained that "no matter how educated or super intelligent they are, basic humanity is not being taught by our education system".

“Our education system is lacking in checking the tendency to hurt someone and cause pain by the super brains. It doesn’t matter whether they had studied at Harvard; they can be super rich, deep inside they are not taught about emotions and humanity.

"This kind of behaviour develops from a small age; academic excellence would have covered it up. More than a mother killing her child, in this case, an educated woman with wonderful capability, lacking in basic patience, compassion, love and sympathy. Her education has failed her," he added.

--IANS

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