DID US AGENCY TRY TO PROTECT GANDHI, ASKS PLEA IN SC
Did the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), an intelligence agency of the United States during World War II and a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), try to protect Mahatma Gandhi?
This question is one among many raised before the Supreme Court in a petition which has sought the re-opening of investigation into Mahatma Gandhi’s murder, suggesting whether it was one of the biggest cover-ups in history.
In his written submission, Dr Pankaj Phadnis, a researcher and a trustee of Abhinav Bharat, Mumbai, who has filed the petition, said telegrams were sent from the US Embassy here to Washington on January 30, 1948 after the assassination of Gandhi and one of the reports relating to it still remains classified.
He has put on record one of the telegrams “obtained officially” by him during his recent visit to the National Archives and Research Administration, Maryland in the USA, during a visit in May this year.
Phadnis maintained that as per the “restricted” telegram of January 30, 1948 sent from the US Embassy at 8 pm, Herbert Tom Reiner, Disburing Officer, was within five feet of Gandhi when he was shot, and with the aid of Indian guards, he had apprehended the assassin.
“The said Reiner filed a report on reaching the Embassy later in the evening. However, after 70 years, the said report remains classified. The petitioner (Phadnis himself) has filed an application under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA of USA) for declassification of the said report,” he said in his written submission in support of the petition, which is listed for hearing on October 6 in the apex court.
Phadnis has informed the apex court about his communication with the United States authorities in which he has mentioned the third telegram sent later the same evening, apparently after the debriefing of Reiner. It has been marked ‘confidential’.
“The third telegram is the subject matter of my FOIA request and has not been supplied to me,” he has told the US authorities, adding he has filed an appeal in this regard.
NEWDELHI: