Video Editor: Abhishek Sharma
The body of billionaire coffee tycoon V G Siddhartha was found by local fishermen and patrolling policemen on the banks of the Nethravathi river near Mangaluru on Wednesday, 31 July, two days after he went missing.
Siddhartha, aged around 60, was last seen near a bridge across the Nethravathi river in Kotepura area of the Dakshina Kannada district on Monday, 29 July. But before he went missing, he made three calls.
Siddhartha Made 3 Calls Before He Went Missing
The Economic Times reported that according to police sources, Siddhartha made three calls in a short span of time before his phone was switched off.
Siddhartha had called his close friend and CFO Javed Parvez. Parvez told The Times of India that the first two calls that Siddhartha made were business-related. But his last call was alarming.
Javed Parvez said Siddhartha's last call came at around 6:00 pm and his voice was trembling. "Siddhartha sounded helpless," Parvez said.
Siddhartha Went Missing on 29 July
Siddhartha had left Bengaluru for Sakleshpur in Hassan district on Monday afternoon, but on the way he had asked his driver to head to Mangaluru instead, according to the police.
Siddhartha reportedly directed his driver Basavaraj Patil to drive towards Mangaluru, his family sources said.
At a bridge near Ullala, he got off the car, asked the driver to wait, walked towards the bridge and never returned.
Siddhartha's body was found by local fishermen and patrolling policemen, two days after he went missing under mysterious circumstances.
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.
Siddhartha, son-in-law of BJP leader and former External Affairs Minister S M Krishna, was cremated at his Chetanahali estate in his ancestral village in Chikkamagaluru where hundreds of people gathered to pay their last respects to the ‘coffee king’.
(With inputs from PTI, The Economic Times and Times of India)
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