‘People have right to know what happened to Netaji’: Mamata Banerjee

Kolkata, August 18

Recalling the mysterious disappearance of great Indian freedom fighter Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday said that people have the right to know of his whereabouts or ultimate fate.

“On this day in 1945, Netaji went on a flight from Taihoku Airport in Taiwan, only to disappear forever. We still do not know what happened to him. People have a right to know about the great son of the soil,” Banerjee tweeted.

A section of Bose’s family, as also some researchers, believe that Netaji died in a plane crash at Taihoku airport. However, other sections of the family, as also a large number of researchers and admirers of the revolutionary leader, have rejected the air crash theory.

The Indian government constituted as many as three probe commissions to ferret out the truth behind Netaji’s disappearance.

In 1999, the Mukherjee Commission, led by retired Supreme Court judge M.K. Mukherjee initiated an exhaustive six-year-long probe into the “alleged disappearance” of Netaji.

The Commission concluded that the air crash theory was planted to give a cover to Netaji’s escape. The Congress-led Central government in 2006 rejected the Commission’s report. 

The Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government in 2015 declassified 64 files on Netaji.

The Narendra Modi-led Union government has also made public a series of files relating to the revolutionary. — IANS