Hours after VG Siddhartha, the owner-founder of the Café Coffee Day chain and the son-in-law of BJP leader SM Krishna went missing in Mangaluru, an intensive search operation has been launched to trace him. According to officials, 100 firefighters, 100 policemen, 50 divers and 50 fishermen and 30 boats have been deployed for the operations. Reports also state that Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa has sought the Centre’s help to deploy navy divers to locate Siddhartha.
Meanwhile, DIG Surendra Singh Dasila, Commander of Coast Guard Karnataka said that in support of the rescue, Indian Coast Guard has deployed its assets ICGS Rajdoot (tasked to patrol off old Mangalore Port and maintaining sharp lookout very close to harbour mouth), Air Cushion Vehicle (Hovercraft) (undertaking search in Nethrvathi River and providing support to cg diving teams), three CG Diving Teams along with District Disaster Relief Team has been deputed to carry out search for missing person and ICGS Savitribai Phule kept standby for deploying off old Mangalore port at short notice.
Former Minister and Mangaluru MLA UT Khader arrived at the spot and is overseeing the search operations. “He is missing from yesterday evening. What we pray is, he should return safely. All type of search is taking place. Police and Revenue department is working hard with the help of locals,” said UT Khader to ANI.
Police officials are questioning all the people that Siddhartha spoke to on Monday. They are also looking into call record details of his driver. The CCTV footage is also being examined.
Siddhartha went missing on Monday night near the Nethravathi river in Mangaluru. According to police sources, Siddhartha left Bengaluru informing his family that he was going to Sakleshpur in Hassan district. However, once he left home, he allegedly told his driver to head towards Mangaluru. When they reached the Nethravati Bridge, he was allegedly on a call and informed his driver that he's taking a walk and would be back. Over an hour after he left, his driver got worried and called his cellphone multiple times but it was switched off. Thereafter, his driver, informed Siddhartha’s family and the police.
Speaking to TNM, Mangaluru Commissioner Sandeep Patil told TNM that the canine squad was deployed and that the dogs stopped at the middle of the 6km long Nethravathi bridge.
Siddhartha, the son of a coffee estate owner, began Café Coffee Day in 1996. Since then, the chain has expanded with 1550 stores with outlets in several international locations. 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.
With inputs from Story Infinity, Subs and Scribes LLP