MADURAI: Days after the Central Government refused to share documents relating to the mysterious death of Indian National Army founder and freedom fighter Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose a lawyer has moved the Madras High Court (Madurai Bench) to access the classified documents.
The petitioner submitted that the Indian Government had constituted two enquiry commissions, the Nawaz Khan Committee in 1956 and G D Khosala Commission in 1999, to probe into the mysterious disappearance of Bose in August 1945. Both the commissions had concluded that the INA leader had died in a plane crash en route to Russia in a Japanese Air Force plane on August 18, 1945.
According to him, there is another theory that Bose had faked his death, reached Russia and returned to India many years later to lead a secret life of a hermit. Some people believe that the sage Bhagwanji Gumnami Baba who lived in Faizabad and died on September 16, 1985 is Nethaji himself.
Besides, it remained a mystery as to why the Japanese News Agency announced Bose’s death on August 23, 1945, five days after the plane crash. The Mukherjee committee had also raised doubts over the claims that the ashes kept in Renkoji temple at Japan are not of Bose.
There were no pictorial or written evidence of the crash in the Taipei airfield log, or in local news papers and no death certificates or cremation certificates for Bose and his co-passengers, who were supposed to have died with him were available.
The petitioner said that the previous UPA Government had refused to share documents relating to Bose’s death/disappearance citing diplomatic reasons.
In the run up to the Lok Sabha election campaign, BJP leader Rajnath Singh (now Union Home Minister) had demanded that the Government should make the documents public.