Will ask Centre to set up Azad Hind Regiment in Army: Guv

Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi will write to the Centre seeking setting up of Azad Hind Regiment in the Indian Army as an honour to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

Tripathi on Monday said: "I will write to our Defence Minister to take a decision on the proposal of setting up of Azad Hind Regiment in the Indian Army."

The development comes on the 121st birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, who had established the Azad Hind Fauj after his arrival in Southeast Asia in 1943.

"The setting up of Azad Hind Regiment will encourage our jawans," Tripathi said.

At another programme organised on at Netaji Bhavan by Netaji Research Bureau, Tripathi recounted an anecdote about the famed freedom fighter. "The then British Governor of Bengal John Herbert had decided to play a cat and mouse policy with Netaji. When Netaji went on a hunger strike in Presidency Jail in November 1940, Herbert sent him to his Elgin Road home on December 5, 1940, having decided to imprison him again as soon as Netaji's health recovered.

"The British kept a close watch on the house in December 1940 and January 1941. As many as fourteen intelligence agents sent secret reports to the Government. Yet Netaji and his nephew Sisir Kumar Bose were able to prepare a perfect escape plan from the house," Tripathi said