Mangaluru/Bengaluru: The body of Cafe Coffee Day founder V G Siddhartha, who went missing two days ago, was found by local fishermen and patrolling policemen on the banks of the Nethravathi river near Mangaluru on Wednesday.
59-year-old Siddhartha, son-in-law of BJP leader and former External Affairs Minister S M Krishna, was cremated in a sombre atmosphere after hundreds of people paid a tearful homage to the 'Coffee King" at his Chetanahali estate in his ancestral village in Chikkamagaluru where hundreds of people gathered to pay their last respects.
Siddhartha, whose chain of cafes helped make coffee a lifestyle beverage, is survived by his wife Malavika and two sons,Amartya and Ishaan.
A police official said "everything" points to suicide, but nothing can be ruled out until the investigation is over.
Siddhartha's body was found by local fishermen and patrolling policemen, two days after he went missing under mysterious circumstances.
-sqimage.jpg.transform/170x160/image.jpg "Missing Cafe Coffee Day owner VG Sidhartha mentions harassment by IT official in his letter")
His body was identified by his friends, said Dakshina Kannada district Deputy Commissioner Sasikanth Senthil.
After the post-mortem at Wenlock Hospital in Mangaluru, the body was taken to Chikkamagaluru.
Amartya lit the funeral pyre after the last rites were performed according to the traditions of the Vokkaliga community from which Siddhartha hailed.
The atmosphere turned sombre as Amartya lit the pyre. The youth broke down several times while performing the rituals. Krishna, 87 and his wife Prema too fought hard to control their emotions.
A large number of people from within the coffee estate and neighbouring villages, whom Siddhartha had helped come up in life, thronged to pay their homage.
Before Chethanahalli, the body was kept at Chikkamagaluru for people to pay their last respects.
Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, his predecessor H D Kumaraswamy and several political leaders attended the funeral.
The remains of Siddhartha was traced after 36 hours of an intensive search operation with a letter allegedly written by him to the Board of Directors and employees of his company Coffee Day Enterprises, showing he was struggling with financial problems due to debt, taxes and share buy backs.
A police official said "everything" points to suicide but nothing can be ruled out until the investigation is over.
The body of Siddhartha, who purportedly wrote a farewell letter to the Board of Directors and employees of his company Coffee Day Enterprises and alleged harassment from lenders and tax authorities, was traced after nearly two days of an intensive search operation.
The search involved multiple agencies which scoured the waters under a bridge across Nethravathi, where Siddhartha was reportedly last seen on Monday night, officials said.
"We have found the body. They (Siddhartha's family) are making arrangements for the funeral. I will also attend it. I have no words to comfort the family," Yediyurappa said in Bengaluru.
"He had more assets than liabilities," Yediyurappa added.
After the post-mortem at Wenlock Hospital in Mangaluru, the body was taken to his hometown of Chikmagalur, where the funeral is scheduled to take place.
A senior police official said, "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.
The authorities predicted the probable location where the body could be traced using a "model" developed by the Hyderabad-based Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), which makes predictions based on current, low and high tide among other parameters, he said.
Reacting to Siddhartha's death, the Karnataka Congress said on Twitter, "Result of harassment by IT officials and decline of India's entrepreneurial position turning virulent by the day, with Tax Terror & collapse of economy."
"Companies which flourished under UPA have been shut down with many people being jobless," it added.
Former Karnataka chief minister and senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah said Siddhartha's death is both "disturbing and mysterious".
"The reasons and the invisible hands that ended his life in this tragic way should be unearthed through impartial & fair investigation", Siddaramaiah said, referring to a letter purportedly written by Siddhartha, where he alleged harassment by the Income Tax department.
He said the letter supposed to have been written by Siddhartha discussed "tax terrorism", which is the "ugly face of politically motivated institutions".
"What signals are we sending to the budding entrepreneurs without even an attempt to reform?", he asked.
In his letter, allegedly written to the Board of Directors and employees of Coffee Day Enterprises, Siddhartha complained of "a lot of harassment" from the previous DG Income Tax.
The IT department refuted the charges and said it had acted according to the provisions of the Income Tax Act.
Former prime minister H D Deve Gowda said, "I am shocked by the demise of V G Siddhartha. He was a very simple man. I knew him for the past 35 years. He had paved way for jobs for thousands of people. The government should properly investigate the cause of his tragic death."
Siddhartha went missing on Monday night near Ullal bridge on Nethravathi river.
The businessman left Bengaluru for Sakleshpur in Hassan district in a car on Monday afternoon. On the way, he asked his driver to go towards Mangaluru, police said.
He got off the car and told his driver to wait for him at the end of the bridge, saying he was going for a walk.
On Tuesday, a fisherman claimed he saw someone jumping off the bridge.
The letter purportedly written by Siddhartha, whose authenticity could not be independently verified, also showed he was under "tremendous pressure" from lenders.
"I have failed as an entrepreneur," he said in the alleged letter.
Siddhartha said he had 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," he said in the letter.
RIP Siddhartha
Some outlets of CCD chain in central Bengaluru remained shut on Wednesday as a mark of respect to its founder-chairman Siddhartha.
The official Facebook page of CCD has changed their profile picture from the usual red logo to a black one on Wednesday.
"Retail outlets in the city centre, including our main coffee 'the square' opposite the famous Cubbon Park are closed for the day as a homage to our founder-chairman along with our main office above the cafe," a CCD source clarified to IANS here.
While in Mumbai, company officials confirmed that all 50 Cafe Coffee Day outlets were functioning as normal. And they said the outlets will remain open during their regular hours till 11pm.
Earlier in the day, the source had told IANS that all the CCD outlets across the country would remain shut as a mark of respect to Siddhartha.
"CCD offices, including that of Coffee Global Enterprises and the Amalgamated Bean Coffee (ABC), have also been shut across the country," the source said on the condition of anonymity.
"A holiday has also been declared for the workers and employees of all coffee estates in the three coffee districts of Chikkamagaluru, Hassan and Kodugu in the southern state due to the sudden death of coffee king Siddhartha," added the source.
In Kerala there are 25 outlets – six in Thiruvananthapuram, 14 in Kochi, and five in Kozhikode. We have been asked to go on with the business and hence we abided by that," said the CCD staff, who did not wish to be identified.
Coffee Day appoints Ranganath as interim chairman
Coffee Day Enterprises on Wednesday named independent director S V Ranganath as the interim chairman of the company to replace its Siddhartha after he was confirmed dead.
The company board, wherein Siddhartha's wife Malavika Hegde is also a director, met on Wednesday to put in place a working structure of the company.
The board appointed "S V Ranganath as the interim chairman of the board" and "Nitin Bagmane as an interim chief operating officer (COO) of the company," Coffee Day Enterprises, which runs India's biggest coffee chain CCD, said in a regulatory filing.
It also constituted an executive committee comprising Ranganath, COO Nitin Bagmane and CFO R Ram Mohan "to exercise the powers previously vested with the Chief Executive Officer of the company and the Administrative Committee constituted by the Board in 2015," it said.
"The board will, in due course, prepare a detailed charter of authorities vested in the Executive Committee and approve the same," the filing said.
The Executive Committee will explore opportunities to deleverage the Coffee Day Group, it said.
(With inputs from PTI and IANS.)
