Files on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose declassified; did he die in 1945?

Kolkata: In a historic and bold step, the West Bengal government, Friday, declassified 64 files relating to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and brought them into the public domain.

The files – in digitised format – were handed over the family members of Netaji by Kolkata Police Commissioner Surajit Kar Purkayastha.

“The files related to Netaji have been placed in the Kolkata police museum archive from today,” Purkayastha said. "It was quite a big task because in a short period of time we had to digitise entire files," he added.

As per reports, out of the 64 police, 9 are crucial as they contain intelligence inputs which may thorw light on the fate of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose – the most important question being whether the founder of Indian National Army died in a plane crash in Taiwan in August 1945.

Recently, some files relating to Bose, declassified by the central government, had revealed that the Ministry of Home Affairs had snooped on at least two of Netaji's nephews.

The files revealed that the Intelligence Bureau had kept the relatives of Netaji under close surveillance between 1948 and 1968 when Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister.

Subsequent to this, family members of Netaji met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and urged him to declassify all Netaji files.