Union Home Minister and the then BJP national president Rajnath Singh during a visit to the Netaji Birthplace Museum here in January 2014 had announced that if his party came to power at the Centre, the Government would order yet another judicial inquiry to unravel the mystery behind the missing of the legendary leader.
However, more than 15 months after forming the Government at the Centre when no such probe has been ordered, the recent declassification of some confidential files relating to Netaji by the West Bengal Government has been appreciated by Netaji lovers here at his birthplace.
People here hope that the Government of India would follow suit to declassify the Netaji files under its possession. The declassification of files till date has made it clear that Netaji lived much after the Taiwan air crash of August 18, 1945.
“The Central Government should declassify the Netaji files soon and order for a judicial Inquiry into the mystery behind the missing of the legendary freedom fighter,” said a Netaji lover at Odia Bazaar, which houses Netaji’s ancestral home.
Three judicial panels had been formed to probe the matter, but each time, for alleged noncooperation from the Government of India, the panels submitted incomplete reports that were subsequently rejected by the Centre.
The latest in this was the Justice Manoj Mukherjee Commission of Inquiry, which was set up in 1999. But Justice Mukherjee was asked to submit his unfinished report in 2006 when he insisted on probing into the Soviet connection of missing Netaji.
Earlier also, the Shah Nawaz Commission and Khosla Commission reports were rejected for the then governments at Centre did not agree with the findings of the Commissions. Justice Mukherjee had clearly said in his report that Netaji was dead but he did not die in the plane crash over Taiwan and the ashes in a Japanese temple are not of Netaji’s.
Justice Mukherjee for the first time had probed into the controversial Soviet connection and had said that Netaji was probably flown to the then USSR after the plane crash and did indeed survive till the end of World War-II.
The report had also suggested that more research was needed to unfold the Soviet angle of Netaji’s detention in a Siberian camp till about a year after his supposed death in the plane crash.