MANGALURU (Karnataka): Café Coffee Day founder and billionaire entrepreneur V G Siddhartha, whose body was recovered from the Nethravati river near Mangaluru 36 hours after he went missing, was cremated at his family’s coffee estate in Chatanahalli village in Hassan district. His eldest son Amartya Hegde lit the funeral pyre after the last rites were performed in an atmosphere marked by quiet grief, as his mother Malavika Hegde and grandfather and former Chief Minister S M Krishna struggled with their emotions. Thousands of people paid their last respects to Siddhartha at Coffee Day Global Ltd, a firm owned by him in Chikkamagaluru town.
His body was found by a group of local fishermen in the Nethravati river near Mangaluru. He had gone missing from the bridge on the river and an intensive search by a 300-strong team had failed to find the body. Three fishermen found the body floating near the Hoigebazar area where the river joins the Arabian sea. They brought it ashore and informed the police. The police also recovered the mobile phone of Siddhartha.
Meanwhile, the police are continuing investigations into the circumstances that led to his death, with a letter purportedly written by him, blaming the Income Tax Department for his extreme step. While the IT department has expressed doubts about the veracity of the letter, the police say that it would be treated as dying declaration, after checking its authenticity.
The board of Coffee Day Enterprises Ltd is also considering getting an independent forensic study of the letter. They need not wait for the police investigation to take up independent inquiry, said a source. Many politicians, including former chief minister Siddaramaiah, said that “harassment” by central agencies had pushed the entrepreneur to the brink.
