Netaji didn't die in plane crash, he was killed: Former bodyguard

A former bodyguard of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose on Wednesday claimed that the revolutionary leader did not die in a plane crash but was killed.

Indian National Army (INA) Sepoy Jagram Yadav, 93, said: "As a gunner, I often heard Netaji and top officers discussing on the issue of freedom struggle. It was believed that (former prime minister Jawaharlal) Nehru had a complex about Bose."

"We were in Chittagong jail in 1945 when the news came that Netaji died in a plane crash. None of us believed the news because Netaji had told us that news regarding his death may be spread to misguide INA fighters," he told IANS.

Yadav claimed that Bose, who is believed to have died in a plane crash in Taiwan in 1945, actually escaped to Russia (Siberia) and was the victim of "India's biggest cover-up".

He said Nehru believed Bose's image was much more bigger and stronger than him in the India and abroad.

"After China's independence in 1949, a Chinese messenger visited the Indian embassy in China and was informed that Netaji was in Russia and wanted to return to India," said Yadav, who was Netaji's bodyguard for nearly 13 months during 1943-44.

"The army attache, Brig Thakkar, attended to the messenger as then ambassador K.M. Panikar was not present there. Excited and happy over hearing the news about Netaji, an emotional Thakkar immediately informed Nehru, who recalled him by the very next flight saying he was not fit for the job," Yadav said.

"Not only me, many of my generation feel that Bose, who freed this country from the British, was killed," he said, adding that he was saying facts based on his experience and ground realities.

After declassified documents revealing the snooping on Bose's family from 1948 to 1968 made it to the headlines last week, Jadav said that he can't say anything on the issue but he was sure Netaji was killed.

Yadav was dismissed by British government on February 22, 1946 calling him rebel as he was an INA sepoy.

He received just Rs.25 for serving nearly 5.6 years in army and fighting in the Second World War for the British.

(Pradeep Singh can be contacted at pradeepsinghrao@gmail.com)