A call to set aside the shroud of secrecy surrounding Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army (INA) he led was given on the occasion of the launch of the Netaji Bichar Foundation today.

It is this secrecy that has become a stumbling block in the way of bestowing the honours to Netaji and INA that they so richly deserve, speakers at the event said.

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Until recently, there was a strong endeavour on the part of the Union government to obliterate Netaji and INA from the pages of history, noted Netaji researcher Purabi Roy said. But since the winds of change are blowing, it is time to find out how some of the INA soldiers en route to the trial at Red Fort met their end at Nilgunge in North-24-Parganas, she said.

Shots were heard whenever some of them shouted the Jai Hind slogan and their numbers depleted thereafter, Ms Roy claimed.

Quite a few of them spent their last days in Multan prison in Pakistan and when I sought visa to go to the neighbouring country, I was asked whether I was going to Multan, she said.

My application for visa was rejected, Ms Roy said. Let the foundation take up the cause of the INA soldiers whose heroism expedited the departure of the British from India, she said. Rubbishing the theory of Netaji having died in an air crash at the fag end of the 2nd World Ward, Supreme Court advocate, Jaideep Mukherjee asked why, if he had died then, his Elgin Road home was under surveillance as late as 1967. Files are there at the city police headquarters at Lalbazar to give credence to this contention, he said.

Netaji passed away in the Soviet Union, Mukherjee claimed.

S Radhakrishnan, the then Indian ambassador to Soviet Union saw Netaji in a “VIP prison” in Moscow, he further claimed.

There are documents in the GRU, the military intelligence wing of the erstwhile Soviet Union stating that Josef Stalin was in a meeting to decide whether to give shelter to “Chandra Bose”. It is time that Netaji Bichar Foundation finds the truth out about Netaji and INA, he said.

The Union government should declassify all the files on Netaji, the foundation’s chairman, Indranil Bhattacharya said. It is also necessary to unearth the fate of INA’s treasure, he added.

HISTORY AND THE NEED FOR TRUTH

It is time to find out how some of the INA soldiers en route to the trial at Red Fort met their end at Nilgunge in North-24-Parganas, said researcher Purabi Roy.

• Many of those INA soldiers spent their last days at Multan prison in Pakistan and when I sought visa to go to the neighbouring country, I was asked whether I was going to Multan. Later, my visa application was rejected, said Roy.
• Netaji passed away in the Soviet Union, claimed advocate Jaideep Mukherjee, adding that there are GRU files that indicate this.
• The Centre should declassify all the files on Netaji, said Netaji Bichar Foundation chairman Indranil Bhattacharya