CCD founder VG Siddhartha's body will be taken to Mangaluru's Wenlock Hospital for post mortem

Two days since India’s biggest coffee chain founder VG Siddhartha had gone missing, his body was recovered on Wednesday from the banks of Netravati river in Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka after 36 hours of search operations conducted by National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Coast Guard, Home Guard, fire services and coastal police.

Karnataka: Body of VG Siddhartha, founder of Café Coffee Day and son-in-law of former CM SM Krishna, has been found on the banks of Netravati River near Hoige Bazaar in Mangaluru pic.twitter.com/J1yDvK2COg

— ANI (@ANI) July 31, 2019

The body was retrieved 5 kilometres from Ullal, where Siddhartha was reportedly last seen, and was fished out by local fishermen. The search teams led active operations till 9.30 pm on Tuesday.

According to PTI, Mangalore MLA UT Khader said friends and relatives have confirmed that the body is of Siddhartha.

Earlier Mangaluru Police said that the body, which was found on Wednesday morning, which appeared to be of Siddhartha, was yet to be identified by his family.

They said that the body will be taken to Wenlock Hospital, where family members will be formally asked to identify the body. The post-mortem of the body will also be carried out at the same hospital.

“A body has been found, which appears to be of him. Final confirmation has to be done by the family,” deputy commissioner of Dakshina Kannada district Sasikanth Senthil told PTI.

The search teams scoured the waters under a bridge across the swollen Nethravathi river. The 60-year-old son-in-law of former Union foreign minister and BJP leader SM Krishna was last seen near the bridge in the Kotepura area in Dakshina Kannada district on Monday night, police said.

Local fishermen had also joined in the frantic search operations.

Siddhartha had left from Bengaluru to Sakleshpur in Hassan district in a car on Monday afternoon, but on the way had asked his driver to go towards Mangaluru, the police said.

On reaching the bridge, he got off the car and told his driver that he was going for a walk. A fisherman had on Tuesday claimed that he saw someone jumping off the bridge.

With inputs from PTI