'Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was alive in 1947 and Nehru knew about it' claims Subramanian Swamy

Convinced that Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose had not died in air crash in Taiwan in 1945, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on Saturday said that the Centre would release secret files relating to his death. "It will be released sometime in the future," Swamy said at a programme here when asked about declassification of Netaji files.

He said that America had given it in writing to the Mukherjee Commission, which probed Netaji's disappearance, that there was no record of any plane crash and no record of any charred body in any hospital in Taiwan. "So this story (of death in air crash) is a bogus story," Swamy said while claiming that Netaji "was alive in 1947 and Nehru knew about it".

Swamy said he would pursue with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to release the files from government records. The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) in a recent RTI reply accepted that there were 41 files related to Netaji, of which two had been declassified, but refused to disclose the others, arguing that the "disclosure would prejudicially affect relations with foreign countries".

Indian spiritual leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (L), known as the Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), speaks with Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, president of the Indian National Congress, 02 March 1938 in Haripura, during a political meeting. The two men were the most prominent leaders of the Indian Independence Movement against the British rule. - AFP

Swamy said that Netaji had faked his death after both his friends Japan and Germany lost the war and escaped to Manchuria in China which was under Russian occupation. When under house arrest by the British in then Calcutta, Netaji had escaped in 1941 to seek international support for his efforts to free his country and formed the Indian National Army with Japanese help. He went missing in 1945.

The Mukherjee Commission had rejected the opinion that he had died in a plane crash at Taihoku airport in Taiwan on August 18, 1945.

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