RIP Siddhartha: All Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) outlets to stay shut today as mark of respect for India's Coffee King

The popular retail chain Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) has decided to shut all of its outlets across India on Wednesday in the memory of its founder-chairman VG Siddhartha, who died in Karnataka under mysterious circumstance. A source told IANS that about 1,750 outlets of the company across the country will remain shut for the day. "All our 1,750 retail outlets in about 240 cities will remain shut for the day as a mark of respect to our founder-chairman Siddhartha who is no more," the source was quoted as saying by the news agency.

The confirmation came hours after Siddhartha`s body was recovered from the Netravathi river on the west coast earlier in the day. Apart from the retail outlets, offices of CCD, including the Coffee Global Enterprises and the Amalgamated Bean Coffee (ABC) will also remain shut across the country. "A holiday has also been declared for the workers and employees of all coffee estates in the three coffee districts of Chikkamagaluru, Hassan and Kodugu in the southern state due to the sudden death of coffee king Siddhartha," the source said.

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Siddhartha's body was found by two fishermen at around 6:30 am during the massive search operation that was launched on Monday night by the state government after the baron's driver filed a complaint that Siddhartha went missing from the road bridge over the river. Siddhartha was the son-in-law of senior BJP leader SM Krishna, who was the external affairs minister during the UPA-2 government (2009-12) and former chief minister of the state from October 1999 to May 2004.

"Two fishermen found Siddhartha`s body early this morning about 500 metres away from the road bridge from where he alleged to have jumped into the river on Monday night," a Mangaluru Police Commissioner Sandeep Patil told reporters. The port city of Mangaluru is about 360km west of Bengaluru.

Meanwhile, Ullal Congress legislator and former minister UT Khadar said that the body has been shifted to the state-run Wenlock hospital mortuary for autopsy and will be handed over to Siddhartha`s family and taken to Chikkamgaluru for the last rites. Two days prior to his disappearance, the coffee baron had left behind a note to his employees that revealed he was in deep debt.