`Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was alive in 1947`

New Delhi: Even as West Bengal government gets ready to make documents on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose public, the controversy over his death in a plane crash in 1945 in Taiwan has been ignited again.

As per a report in The Indian Express, some of these documents suggest that in 1948-49 American and British intelligence agencies believed that Netaji was alive and that he played an important role in Communist uprisings in Southeast Asia.

The IE report further suggests that the Information and Broadcasting Ministry had also confirmed the same thing to Netaji’s nephew Amiya Nath Bose in 1948.

The letter read: “I regret I could not find out that news about Netaji which have been published in Chinese newspaper in Nanking some time ago. I am still believing that he is alive.”

These files are among the 64 files on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose that would be declassified and put in public domain on Friday.

In February this year, the Narendra Modi government in reply to an RTI plea had refused to disclose records related to Netaji's alleged death 70 years ago, saying there was a larger public interest involved in making them public.

Toeing the line of the previous UPA government, the PMO had cited an exemption clause in the RTI Act which allows withholding of information that could prejudicially affect relations with a foreign country.