This story first appeared in The New Indian Express
According to research, its occurrence is “rare, varying between 0.6-2.1 per 1,00,000 children under the 15-year age group”.
BENGALURU: Suchana Seth (39), CEO of a Bengaluru-based startup ‘Mindful AI Lab’, was arrested on January 8 from Chitradurga district for allegedly killing her minor son in a service apartment in North Goa. Seth has consistently denied indulging in maternal filicide. The Goa police have sought professional help from psychiatrists to question Seth. She has been charged under concerned sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for murder (302) and destruction of evidence (201), besides the Goa Children’s Act. The children’s court in Goa on Monday extended her police custody by another five days.
Maternal filicide, an extremely disturbing homicide, is defined as the act of a mother killing her own offspring who is one-year-old or more. According to research, its occurrence is “rare, varying between 0.6-2.1 per 1,00,000 children under the 15-year age group”. Though maternal filicide is not new, it is not well documented or researched in India largely because of a lack of adequate number of forensic psychiatry centres and forensic psychiatrists.
In one of the first systematic descriptions on maternal filicide in the country, a team of psychiatrists from the National Institute of Mental Health & Neuro Sciences (Nimhans) had published a paper in the ‘Asian Journal of Psychiatry’ in August 2018, in which they had presented findings from a case series of four women inpatients, who were undergoing trial for filicide. All women had reported severe marital discord and poor social support. The authors in the paper ‘Maternal filicide: A case series from a medico-legal psychiatry unit in India’ stated that filicide is a “multifaceted, multifactorial and multidimensional (socio-psychological-legal) act. Along with psychiatric disorders such as severe depression, the women in our sample had seemingly insurmountable psychosocial difficulties, which are important risk factors”.
The authors from Nimhans quoted well-known American psychiatrist Phillip Resnick, who in 1969 had classified filicide into five types based on ‘motives’ behind the act. These included “altruistic-filicide, where the parent kills the child keeping in mind the ‘best interest of the child’ and is the commonest. The second is psychotic-filicide, where a parent kills the child without any logical reasoning, under the effect of a severe psychotic experience. The third type is unwanted-child-filicide, where the child is viewed as a hindrance to parents’ social benefits. The fourth type is the accidental-filicide, where parents do not have any motive behind filicide and this commonly follows severe neglect and abuse. The fifth type is the spouse-revenge-filicide, where one parent displaces anger towards the child secondary to ongoing severe marital discord, and jealousy”.
They found “consistent associations with family stressors, including severe marital discord, jealousy, unemployment, illiteracy and poor social support, besides severe psychopathology such as ongoing major depressive episode, psychosis, subnormal intelligence, and substance use (as contributing factors behind maternal filicide)”.
In cases of maternal filicide, “it is imperative to get the psychiatric assessment of the mother to ascertain the cause (of homicide), wherever resources are available”, said Professor of Psychiatry Suresh Bada Math, in-charge, Head of Forensic Psychiatry, Nimhans. He has co-authored the paper on maternal filicide with Senior Professor of Psychiatry and Dean, Behavioural Science, Nimhans, Prabha Chandra and others.
Suchana to be produced in court on January 19
Belagavi: Children’s court in Panaji extended the police custody of Suchana Seth, CEO of a Bengaluru based startup, by five days in connection with the murder of her 4 yr old son, which, she allegedly committed in a hotel in Goa last week. She will be produced to the court on January 19. Meanwhile, Suchana was confronted by her husband Venkat Raman in the Goa police station, and a brief argument took place between the two. A DNA test of Venkat Raman has been scheduled at Goa Medical College and Hospital on Tuesday. Sources said the reports of the tests conducted by Goa Medical College on Suchana would also be out on Wednesday. A psychiatrist doctor from the college has already tested Suchana and his report also is expected to be out on Wednesday.