The body of Cafe Coffee Day founder V G Siddhartha, who went missing since Monday, was found washed ashore in Karnataka’s Netravati river, on Wednesday. The mysterious case of his missing created a turmoil in the country.
The dead body was found by a fisherman in Hoige Bazaar, less than a kilometre from the bridge where Siddhartha was last seen.
Teams of National Disaster Response Force, Coast Guard, Home Guard, fire services and coastal police scoured the waters under a bridge across the swollen Nethravathi river, where Siddhartha was reportedly last seen, to trace the coffee tycoon.
Siddhartha had left Bengaluru for Sakleshpur in a car on Monday afternoon, but on the way he reportedly directed his driver Basavaraj Patil to drive towards Mangaluru.
At a bridge near Ullala, he got down from the car, told his driver he was going for a walk and asked him to wait. He then walked towards the bridge and never returned.
Patil panicked when he did not spot Siddhartha and his phone went unanswered several times. Soon, he called Siddhartha’s son Amartya who asked him to be calm and wait for a while.
However, when there was no response, he finally lodged a complaint with the police.
Two days prior to his disappearance, the 60-year-old had left behind a note to his employees that revealed he was in deep debt.
The purported letter referred to the “tremendous pressure” he was under from lenders and “harassment” from Income Tax officials. And that he was “very sorry to let down all the people that put their trust in me”.
The Income Tax Department on Tuesday denied charges of harassment during its probe against Siddhartha. It said the businessman had admitted holding stash income after raids were conducted against him and his concerns.
The statement said Siddhartha fetched Rs 3,200 crore from the sale of Mindtree shares, but has paid only Rs 46 crore out of the total Rs 300 crore minimum alternate tax (MAT) payable on the deal.
Friends and relatives confirmed that the body is of Siddhartha. The body has been kept at Wenlock Hospital for the autopsy. It will be handed over to Siddhartha’s family and taken to Chikkamgaluru for the last rites.