Indian panel says freedom hero dead, mystery alive
Reuters
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New Delhi (India):
It is one of the enduring mysteries of India's freedom struggle, but a long awaited report on the fate of charismatic leader Subhas Chandra Bose has failed to solve the riddle of his disappearance more than 60 years ago.
After a six-year investigation, the report published on Wednesday said Bose was dead but was not killed in a plane crash as widely believed.
But the report said it could not say how he died, and its conclusions were contradicted by the government, which backed the plane crash theory.
The investigation also said that the ashes in a temple in Japan were not that of Bose -- again rejected by the government.
"The government has examined the report ... and has not agreed with the findings that Netaji did not die in the plane crash and the ashes in the Renkoji Temple were not of Netaji," a government statement said without elaborating.
Bose, popularly known as "Netaji" or leader, led the rebel Indian National Army that fought British colonial rule in India in an alliance with the Japanese during World War Two.
Earlier, official reports said Bose died in a Japanese air crash in Taiwan in August, 1945 at the age of 48 and his cremated remains were sent to Japan.
But Taiwanese authorities denied this, saying there was no record of an air crash at the time, boosting the claim of those who believe Bose faked the crash to escape secretly to the former Soviet Union.
The debate raged for decades until New Delhi set up a panel headed by former Supreme Court judge M.K. Mukherjee in 1999 to investigate his mysterious disappearance and report his whereabouts if he was still alive.
May 17, 2006
Reuters
______
New Delhi (India):
It is one of the enduring mysteries of India's freedom struggle, but a long awaited report on the fate of charismatic leader Subhas Chandra Bose has failed to solve the riddle of his disappearance more than 60 years ago.
After a six-year investigation, the report published on Wednesday said Bose was dead but was not killed in a plane crash as widely believed.
But the report said it could not say how he died, and its conclusions were contradicted by the government, which backed the plane crash theory.
The investigation also said that the ashes in a temple in Japan were not that of Bose -- again rejected by the government.
"The government has examined the report ... and has not agreed with the findings that Netaji did not die in the plane crash and the ashes in the Renkoji Temple were not of Netaji," a government statement said without elaborating.
Bose, popularly known as "Netaji" or leader, led the rebel Indian National Army that fought British colonial rule in India in an alliance with the Japanese during World War Two.
Earlier, official reports said Bose died in a Japanese air crash in Taiwan in August, 1945 at the age of 48 and his cremated remains were sent to Japan.
But Taiwanese authorities denied this, saying there was no record of an air crash at the time, boosting the claim of those who believe Bose faked the crash to escape secretly to the former Soviet Union.
The debate raged for decades until New Delhi set up a panel headed by former Supreme Court judge M.K. Mukherjee in 1999 to investigate his mysterious disappearance and report his whereabouts if he was still alive.
May 17, 2006
