India's coffee mogul VG Siddhartha, who owns Café Coffee Day chain, has been missing since Monday. The businessman is the son-in-law of former Karnataka chief minister SM Krishna. He was last seen on a bridge over the Netravati River in Mangaluru.
Siddhartha's driver told the police that the businessman was on his phone and had asked him to stop near the bridge. He got down from the car and the driver was then instructed to wait on the other side of the bridge.
When Siddhartha did not return after an hour, the driver searched in the nearby areas and alerted his family members.
- The last signal from Siddhartha's phone was from the bridge.
- The search and rescue operations have been going on since Monday night.
- Coast Guard, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and eight teams of police have been deployed to search for Siddhartha.
- Coast Guard's ICGS Rajdoot has also been deployed near old Mangaluru port.
- BJP members led by Shobha Karandlaje met and asked Union Home Minister Amit Shah to order the Coast Guards to search for Siddhartha.
- Sniffer dogs had traced Siddhartha's scent to the bridge and stopped in the middle.
- Siddhartha had left a letter behind which stated that he had "failed to create the right profitable business model despite my best efforts". "I would like to say I gave it my all. I am very sorry to let down all the people that put their trust in me. I fought for a long time but today I gave up as I could not take any more pressure from one of the private equity partners forcing me to buy back shares," he added.
- Karnataka Congress leader DK Shivakumar calls the letter fishy and alleged that the businessman might have been taken away or kidnapped.
