CCD founder VG Siddhartha no more

The founder of Café Coffee Day (CCD) VG Siddhartha was found dead yesterday morning 36 hours after he went missing from a bridge near Mangaluru.

Siddhartha, the son-in-law of former Karnataka Chief Minister SM Krishna was last seen on Monday night while walking on a bridge.

After a massive search operation, his body was found by fishermen 500 metres away from the road bridge.

A letter which was supposed to be written by him is doing rounds on social media.

The letter that was left behind to his employees by him was dated July 27. it was found on Tuesday which revealed that he had a huge debt due to which he could not meet his working capital.

He sold his shares of IT firm Mindtree to meet the requirement. His letter also says that despite his best efforts he could not succeed.

In his letter, he described himself as a failure and apologized to all the people who trusted in him. He also wrote that he had fought for a long time, but due to unbearable pressure, he was giving up.

His letter also described the IT raids. The income tax officials raided on his cafés in around 20 locations in 2017.

The Congress demanded a probe on his death. However, the IT department denied charges of harassment against him saying that Siddhartha had admitted holding income during their raids.

They also say that his signature was different in the letter which is being circulated on social media.

VG Siddhartha established his coffee business in Karnataka in 1993.

At that time, coffee was not as popular as now. Yet, he succeeded in attracting customers especially the youth.

There are 1550 Coffee Day Cafes in India and on an average around 50,000 people visit these cafés per week.

Image Credit: Divyaacharya16 / CC BY-SA

Image Reference: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cafe_Coffee_day_Gandhinagar.JPG