Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)

Mangaluru, Jul 29: It has been a year since Cafe Coffee Day founder, V G Siddhartha, committed suicide by jumping into River Netravati from the Ullal bridge. However, the reasons behind his suicide has remained a mystery.

Siddhartha had, on this day last year, arrived here by car. He had asked the driver to stop the car near the Ullal bridge and had walked alone on the bridge before going missing. His body was found in the river near Hoige Bazar on July 31.

The investigation team lead by city (south) assistant commissioner of police had investigated the case from different angles and filed final report on August 26, 2019. The report says that Siddhartha died of suffocation and therefore concluded that the death was caused due to suicide. But reasons behind the suicide have not yet been found out.

V G Siddhartha

The bridge which had already earned notoriety for being a spot of suicides, gained further attention after Siddhartha's suicide. Within a year, eight persons jumped into the river from the bridge and ended their lives, and now, protective fencing at a cost of Rs 58 lac is being built at the bridge.

Many theories were floated about the cause of this suicide including harassment by income tax department. A committee headed by retired director of Central Bureau of Investigation, Ashok Kumar Malohotra, had investigated and found that Siddhartha had transferred Rs 3,535 crore from Cafe Coffee Day to his own companies. Recent reports said that the income tax department has been given clean chit by the committee.

In a letter written four days before his suicide, Siddhartha had owned entire responsibility for all the financial dealings. He also claimed that neither the auditors nor the senior members of the board had any inkling about the financial dealings put through by him.

Police said that deeper investigation from different angles into the case is yet to be carried out. They said that circumstances leading to Siddhartha's death could not be ascertained as the police were busy investigating many cases pertaining to law and order situation since December last.