Coffee King laid to rest in family estate

Mudigere, Jul 31: Café Coffee Day founder V G Siddhartha, who apparently committed suicide by jumping into the Netravati river near Mangaluru following harassment by I-T department, was on Wednesday cremated at his family’s coffee estate in Chatanahalli village.

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 her father and former Chief Minister S M Krishna struggled with their emotions.

Earlier in the day, thousands of people paid their last respects to Siddhartha at Coffee Day Global Ltd, a firm owned by him in Chikkamagaluru town. Siddhartha’s biggest entrepreneurial innovation, CCD, had its roots in the coffee-growing hilly districts of Chikkamagaluru and Hassan where his father owned large estates.

It was in the early hours of Wednesday that the body of Siddhartha was found by a group of local fishermen in the Netravati river near Mangaluru. He had gone missing from the bridge on the river since Monday evening and an intensive, all-day search by a 300-strong team on Tuesday had failed to find the body. Three fishermen found the body floating near the Hoigebazar area where the river joins the Arabian sea, at 6.30 a.m. They brought it ashore and informed the police. The police have 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 “succumbing to the situation.”

While the IT department has expressed doubts about his veracity of the letter, the police say that it would be treated as dying declaration, after checking its authenticity. Kamal Pant, Additional Director-General of Police (Law and Order), Karnataka, confirmed to The Hindu, “We have recovered the letter from his family members. We will take necessary action further.”

The board of Coffee Day Enterprises Ltd. (CDEL), that met on Wednesday, 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.

The day saw many politicians in the opposition camp, including former chief minister Siddaramaiah, saying that “harassment” by central agencies had pushed the entrepreneur to the brink.