Shastri wanted to set up an inquiry commission to probe Netaji mystery

Lal Bahadur Shastri, when he was Prime Minister, wanted to set up an inquiry commission into the disappearance of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose as he was not happy with the findings of the Shahnawaz Committee, which declared him as having died in an aircrash in Taiwan in August 1945.

A former chief of the Delhi unit of the Congress, Jagdish Kodesia, disclosed this to the G.D. Khosla Commission, which was inquiring into the Netaji mystery, on 1 March 1971 as witness. “One thing is there that Shastri definitely wanted that there should be another inquiry Commission. If he would have lived longer, he must have seen to that ....,” Kodesia, who is no longer alive, told the Commission.

This disclosure is part of the files that were declassified recently and came to be infamously known as the “Nehru snooping files”, as they showed that Jawaharlal Nehru had ordered the snooping of Bose family members.

Some Shastri family members are even wondering whether his “mysterious” death had anything to do with what he had come to know about the Netaji case as Prime Minister, and during his visit to Tashkent — something that he was about to disclose. Shastri died in Tashkent during his visit there.

Although there is no evidence to link Shastri’s death with the Netaji mystery, the fact emerging from some of the files along with the Nehru snooping files, suggests that Shastri did not believe in the plane crash theory and wanted the truth to come out.

The mystery has further deepened with Shastri’s relatives expressing their suspicion that his death was not natural. This is quite contrary to the official version so far that the former Primer Minister died of cardiac arrest. In fact, Shastri’s relatives will now approach Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding that the secret files related to Shastri’s death be declassified. Shastri died in Tashkent (Russia) on 11 January 1966, soon after signing the Tashkent Pact with Pakistan.

Shastri’s son Sunil Shastri told this newspaper that he was not sure whether “Babuji” (Shastri) had met Netaji in Tashkent during his visit there. “But there is a possibil-