The Subhas Chandra Bose mystery never stops making history. This time, questions are being raised on the missing Indian National Army (INA) treasure, which was allegedly retrieved from the plane that was carrying Netaji on his last journey to Formosa in Taiwan. The Prime Minister’s Office has ordered a treasure hunt, but the investigating officials are befuddled after being directed from many pillars to many posts. They have knocked on the doors of libraries and museums, including National Archives and National Museum, in Delhi and Kolkata, and returned empty handed. Despite documentary evidence, all government bodies, which were supposed to have had the treasure in their keep or were part of the trail, have turned down any knowledge of its whereabouts. Compounding the mystery, papers in possession of The Sunday Standard show that most of the cache that consisted of gold ornaments, diamonds and bullion were stolen by a minister in the Azad Hind government and a prominent member of INA. After the declassification of the Netaji files by the West Bengal government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise to make public 89 secret files from January 23, 2016 and his meeting with Netaji’s family, the Netaji treasure has become a major bone of contention.
THE PROBE BEGINS
The Government has launched a probe to trace the valuables recovered from Japan by the Nehru government, which was subsequently handed over to the National Museum. Documents indicate that four boxes containing treasure was brought to Japan after Netaji died, but only one box was returned to India. But even that has gone untraceable.
According to senior officials, a communication was sent by the Centre to the National Museum, National Archives and the Netaji Museum in Kolkata, seeking information related to the four bundles containing gold rings, bangles, chains, pendants and necklaces that were charred in the plane crash. As per the records available with the PMO, the box was handed over to the National Museum in December 1953 after a year long deliberations within the establishment over its disposal. However, when the officers contacted the museum last week, they were told that no such treasure exists in the museum. The museum officials suggested they look for it in the National Archives or the Kolkata Museum. That too came a cropper. “We have been informed that the National Archives and the Kolkata Museum don’t have any such treasure box,” the officials added.
A senior National Archives officer on condition of anonymity said the treasure was never transferred to archive, which is the repository of all historical documents and other matter.
