'Centre's RTI reply insult to Netaji'

Coming down heavily on the central government for its response to an RTI query that Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose died in an air crash in 1945, a section of intellectuals here on Saturday said such a statement without any conclusive evidence is an insult to the revolutionary.

"We are stunned and disappointed with the present stand of central government on this issue, where an officer from the Home Ministry concluded that Netaji actually died in the plane crash in 1945," professor and Trinamool Congress MP Saugata Roy said at a protest demonstration organised by city-based social welfare organisation Vivek.

"We strongly condemn Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the central government for making such baseless claims without proper investigation and consider it as an insult to Netaji," he added.

Roy said the Mukherjee commission was formed to probe the mystery behind Netaji's disappearance solely because people of the nation were not satisfied with the reports of two previous commissions.

"The Mukherjee commission clearly stated that Netaji did not die in a plane crash in Taiwan's Taihoku airport on August 18, 1945. But neither the UPA or the NDA government took the investigation any further," he alleged.

The Trinamool leader further accused the present central government of politicising the "Netaji issue" and alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) tried to gain political mileage in the state by giving election tickets to Netaji's family members.

"We saw how Netaji's name was misused by BJP for gaining political mileage in the state. When Netaji's family under the leadership of his grand nephew Chandra Kumar Bose urged the Prime Minister to reopen the investigation about Netaji's disappearance, instead of the investigation, Chandra Bose was given a BJP ticket to fight against state Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the last assembly elections," he added.

Historian and Netaji researcher Purabi Roy, who was a part of the fact-finding mission under the Mukherjee commission, claimed that she found concrete evidence of Netaji's survival post 1945 from military records in Russia.

"We found several proofs and documents about Netaji's survival in a Russian prison after 1945. It is possible that he was kept in a Russian prison under Stalin's instruction. However, those reports were brushed aside by the then government," Roy said.

Criticising the Modi government's statement on the issue, she urged the civil society to fight for the truth about Netaji.

"The reports of the previous two commission was accepted by the government but people rejected it. Same thing will happen to this conclusion drawn by the central government. I urge the youths and civil society to protest against it and fight truth," she added.

--IANS

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