NEW DELHI : One of the latest declassified files on Netaji shows that the Government had in 1962 categorically admitted that it had no direct concrete proof of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s death, but had been led to the conclusion only by circumstantial evidence.
The files contains a letter of then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru to Netaji’s elder brother Suresh Bose, who had given a dissenting note in the Shahnawaz Committee which had been set to enquire into the death of the great leader in an air crash on August 18 1945.
”You have asked me for proof. I cannot send you any precise and direct proof. But all the circumstantial evidence that has been produced which has been referred to in the Enquiry Committee’s report has convinced us of the fact that Netaji has died,” Mr Nehru said in response to a letter from Suresh Bose.
Mr Nehru also said that the probability of Netaji being alive secretely somewhere diminishes from the fact that had he been alive he would have come to India where he would have been welcomed with joy and affection. The 50 declassified files also include one which contains the affidavit of Usha Ranjan Bhattarjee, author of a book on Netaji, submitted to the Mukherjee inquiry commission.
The Commission has cited the affidavit to the Centre seeking its response. In the affidavit, the author disputed the theory that Nataji died in the air crash in Taihoku airfield in Formosa, then part of Japanese Empire. He says that in August 1945, there was no scope for any Japanese bomber to take off or fly from Singapore airport or any ship because the Emperor of Japan had surrendered on 14th August 1945 to Gen Mac Arthur of the Allied forces.
The author claims that Netaji was arrested from INA’s Seremban training camp, brought to Singapore from where he was transported to Delhi by air. He was confined to a cell in Red Fort and put to death.
The author says that after the declaration of surrender by the Emperor of Japan, no Japanese General had the authority to permit take off of a military aircraft, because of which the crash theory of Netaji’s death does not hold water. (AGENCIES)
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