The body of Cafe Coffee Day founder V.G. Siddhartha, who was missing, was found on Wednesday in the Netravati river in Dakshina Kannada district after 36 hours of search, officials said.

The body had washed ashore near Ullal and was fished out by fishermen.

Mangalore MLA U.T. Khader said friends and relatives have confirmed that the body is of Siddhartha.

'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 earlier.

Mangalore commissioner of police Sandeep Patil said the body has been kept at Wenlock Hospital for further formalities.

Siddhartha, the founder of India's largest coffee chain, was missing since Monday night en route to the coastal city of Mangaluru.

Teams of the National Disaster Response Force, the Coast Guard, Home Guard, fire services and coastal police scoured the waters under a bridge across the swollen Nethravathi river, where the 60-year old was reportedly last seen, to trace the coffee tycoon.

Siddhartha, also the son-in-law of former Karnataka chief minister S.M. Krishna, was last seen near the bridge in Kotepura area on Monday night, police said.

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

On reaching the bridge, he got off the car and told his driver he was going for a walk.

A fisherman had on Tuesday claimed that he saw someone jumping off the bridge.