PMO releases 33 secret files on Netaji

It appears that the January 23 deadline for the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to declassify all secret documents on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose will be met.

In fact, the Principal Secretary to the PM, Nripendra Mishra handed over the first set of files to the DG, National Archives of India.

The PMO also tweeted that the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of External Affairs are separately taking action for releasing files under their custody. These files–most of whom have been read by Justice Manoj Mukherjee (one man Government commission who filed his report in 2006)–are likely to reveal facts about Netaji’s marriage to Emile Schenkel in Germany and about the two inquiry committees(Shah Nawaz Committee and Khosla Commission) set up by the Congress Government at the Centre. “The files may not reveal much about his disappearance mystery though. The real truth about Bose’s disappearance may be hidden in the Intelligence files which are yet to be declassified”, Chandrachur Ghose of Mission Netaji told Millennium Post from New Delhi.

Sources in Netaji’s family say that at least 70 crucial classified files are lying with the Intelligence Bureau(IB). “We require to look at even the intelligence files of foreign countries in order to get to the bottom of the disappearance mystery. For example, we need declassified documents from CIA, MI5 and MI6 and of course the KGB. Why must they hold back classified information on Bose?” said Abhijit Roy, grand nephew of Subhas Chandra Bose.

In fact, when the family members of Netaji met up with Narendra Modi in Delhi in October, the Prime Minister assured that secret Government documents on Bose would be revealed by January 23, 2016, Netaji’s birth anniversary. Interestingly, the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has already declassified 64 secret files relating to Subhas Chandra Bose in September this year. 

The 64 released files containing 12,744 pages were declassified in the presence of Bose’s family members who have been demanding that information on Bose, kept confidential till now, should be made public.