VG Siddhartha, son-in-law of veteran BJP leader SM Krishna and the owner-founder of the Cafe Coffee Day chain, has been reported missing since Monday, 29 July. Police officials have launched a probe into his disappearance.
Siddhartha got out of his car near a bridge across the Nethravathi river in Mangaluru. His driver panicked when he did not return in an hour, and informed the family. The Dakshina Kannada police have been searching for Siddhartha since last night.
“According to the driver Siddhartha left from Bengaluru to Mangaluru on Monday night. They were crossing National Highway 66 and the driver was asked to stop the car at the bridge over Netravati River in Ullal. He was talking on his mobile phone when he asked his driver to stop the car and is said to have walked away from the car. He told his driver he would be back soon and that was the last time his driver saw him,” Mangaluru Commissioner Sandeep Patil told TNM.
Boats have been deployed to look for Siddhartha in the Netravati river. A Mangalore based website, Daijiworld wrote that two other persons were with Siddhartha in the car and they had got down at Pumpwell circle.
Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa and Congress leader DK Shivakumar have rushed to the house of SM Krishna.
Siddhartha started Sivan Securities, which was later renamed as Global Technology Ventures in the year 2000.
Siddhartha, who is the son of a coffee estate owner, is the proprietor of CCD, which was launched more than two decades ago. According to an Economic Times story in 2015, CCD has 1,550 stores, around 31,000 vending machines and 12,000 corporate accounts. It has outlets in many international locations including outlets in Prague, Vienna and Kuala Lumpur.
According to a Forbes report, VG Siddhartha is worth more than 1.15 billion dollars and had shares in tech company Mindtree until March 2019 when he sold them to L&T. He also has shares in a few companies in the hospitality sector.
According to his profile on MindTree, his family has been in the coffee growing business for more than 130 years. The Coffee Day Group has interests in coffee retailing, logistics, technology parks (SEZ and STP scheme), financial services and investments in technology and software companies.
(The story has been published in an arrangement with The News Minute)
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