Bose family seeks RSS intervention in the secret Netaji files

Several members of the family led by  Chitra Ghosh and Dr DN Bose, Netaji’s niece and nephew, met top RSS functionary Indresh Kumar in Kolkata Saturday evening with their demand.

The moves come even as the Narendra Modi government, like its predecessor, refuses to release secret files, many of which are about Netaji’s disappearance, citing relations with a foreign State.

“Justice Mukherjee [head of one-man commission of inquiry set up by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government] also noted in his Report that vital documents held by the Government of India were not made available to him, and that this had hampered his quest for the truth of the disappearance,” read a letter signed by Netaji’s niece  Chitra Ghosh, Chandra Kumar Bose and Abhijit Ray, Netaji’s grandnephews, which was handed over to Kumar.  

 Demanding “release in the public domain of all classified and secret files pertaining to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in the custody of the Government of India,” the family also called for the setting up of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) “under the guidance of a leading Judge of the Supreme Court of India to investigate the Netaji disappearance mystery after 18th August 1945”.

Chandra Kumar Bose, the spokesperson for the Bose family, who also met Kumar said that the interaction with Kumar was “positive” and the Sangh official “promised to take the matter up with the Government”.

 Writer and activist Anuj Dhar, whose 2012 book “India’s biggest cover-up” rekindled the demand for declassification, said that it was imperative that the RSS takes up the issue. “The Modi government’s repeating the line taken by Manmohan Singh’s regime will dent the Sangh Parivar’s image in the minds of countless admirers of Netaji spread across the globe,” he said.