New Delhi: Indian National Army's treasure was embezzled after the death of Netaji Shubhas Chandra Bose and surprisingly the then Indian government did nothing despite having knowledge of the loot, reported an english daily.
The daily claimed to be in the possession of the classified documents on Netaji.
The report said the then under secretary RD Sathe in MEA wrote to prime minister Nehru that a bulk of the treasure - gold ornaments and precious stones - had been left behind by Bose in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam. In his letter Sathe also said, this treasure had already been disposed of by the suspected conspirators.
The report also said, Nehru ignored repeated warnings from ministry of external affairs and no inquiries were ordered.
On January 29, 1945, Indian residents of Rangoon, the capital of Japanese- occupied-Burma, held a grand week-long ceremony. It was the 48th birthday of Netaji, the head of the provisional government of the Azad Hind. Netaji was weighed against gold, "somewhat to his distaste", Hugh Toye notes in his biography. Toye was a former British intelligence officer whose job was to track Netaji.
Donation worth Over Rs.2 crore was collected that week that included more than 80 kg of gold. Netaji had raised the largest war chest by any Indian leader in the 20th century.
BJP leader Subramanyam Swamy alleged that the treasure was in custody of Prime Minister Nehru, he said ICS officer K R Damle was sent to Japan by Nehru to take custody of the treasure boxes and upon his return, Nehru himself broke the lock of the boxes and after that the box was found in the archives of Archalogical survey of India in a sack with stones and bricks
