Cafe Coffee Day founder V G Siddhartha was reported to have gone missing after he left from Bengaluru on Monday night, police said.

Cafe Coffee Day founder V G Siddhartha was reported to have gone missing after he left from Bengaluru on Monday night, police said.

Siddhartha, the son-in-law of former Karnataka chief minister SM Krishna, was headed for Sakaleshpur but on the way he had asked his driver to go towards Mangaluru, according to the police.

On reaching a bridge over the Netravati river in the Kotepura area in Dakshina Kannada district, he got down from the car and told his driver that he was going for a walk. "He (Siddhartha) asked the driver to wait till his arrival. When he did not return even after two hours, the driver approached the police and lodged a missing complaint," deputy commissioner of Dakshina Kannada district Senthil Sasikant Senthil told PTI.

More than 200 policemen and divers on about 25 boats were carrying out searches for him. The deputy commissioner said that sniffer dogs have also been pressed into service. "The help of local fishermen is being taken in the search. We are checking who all he spoke to over phone," Mangaluru Police Commissioner Sandeep Patil said in a message.

A letter written by him to the board of Cafe Coffee Day on 27th July is now making the rounds where a defeated Siddhartha says that he has 'failed as an entrepreneur'.

In January, Siddhatha's shares in Mindtree were attached by Tax Department in a potential tax department. That development makes its way into the letter. Also Siddhartha says in the letter, "There was a lot of harassment from the previous DG Income Tax in the form of attache our shares on two separate occasions to block our Mindtree deal and then taking position of our Coffee Day shares, although the revised returns have been filed by us. This was very unfair and has lead to the serious liquidity crunch".

Significantly, CCD in a statement has said, "Company is professionally managed and led by competent leadership team, which will ensure continuity of business."

With agency inputs