New Delhi: The body of V.G. Siddhartha, the founder of Cafe Coffee Day, was found in Netravati river in Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka on Wednesday – two days after he went missing from a bridge near Mangaluru.
A police official said “everything” points to suicide but nothing can be ruled out until the investigation is over.
“Friends and relatives have confirmed that the body is of V.G. Siddhartha,” U.T. Khader, Mangaluru lawmaker and former minister, was quoted as saying by ANI.
Siddhartha, whose chain of cafes helped make coffee a lifestyle beverage and brought in latte, cappuccino, Americano and espresso into the urban Indian lexicon, was 69. He is survived by his wife Malavika and two sons.
A senior police official told PTI, “Investigation is going on. Prima facie every thing points out to that (suicide) only. But we still we can’t rule out anything. We will have to finish the investigation”.
Senthil said the body was spotted by local fishermen and police, who had been patrolling on the banks of the river.
Reports of Siddhartha, the son-in-law of Karnataka chief minister S.M. Krishna, going missing surfaced on Tuesday, with an initial assessment of the situation pointing towards a possible suicide attempt.
Two days ago, Siddhartha was headed for Sakaleshpur from Bengaluru but, on the way, he had asked his driver to go towards Mangaluru, according to the police.
On reaching a bridge over the Netravati river, he got down from the car and told his driver that he was going for a walk.
Soon after, a letter made its way into the public domain – reportedly sent by Siddhartha to the board of Coffee Day Enterprises – blaming three major issues that led him to “succumbing to the situation”.
The Wire has not independently verified the authenticity of this letter. Multiple media outlets, however, say it was sent to the board some days ago.
The three issues, as per the letter, were:
I would like to say I gave it my all. I am sorry to let down all the people that put their trust in me. I fought for a long time but today I gave up as I could not take any more pressure from one of the private equity partners forcing me to buy back shares, a transaction I had partially completed six months ago by borrowing a large sum of money from a friend.
Tremendous pressure from other lenders lead to me succumbing to the situation.
There was a lot of harassment from the previous DG income tax in the form of attaching our shares on two separate occasions to block our Mindtree deal and then taking position of our Coffee Day shares, although the revised returns have been filed by us. This was very unfair and has led to a serious liquidity crunch.[Emphasis added by The Wire]
Later, on Tuesday night, the I-T department claimed that the signature on the note did not match the one in the company’s annual reports.
Mangalore commissioner of police Sandeep Patil told PTI that Siddhartha’s family has been informed and the body has been kept at Wenlock Hospital for further formalities.
(With PTI inputs)