Kolkata: West Bengal government will today make public the secret files on legendary freedom fighter Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose .
Hidden in government and police lockers for years, 64 classified files will be on display at the Kolkata police museum.
The files will be declassified before members of the Bose family and the media and later notify when common people can access the contents. The files will be made available to public from Monday.
Recently, Scores of files were declassified, many in the National Archives in Delhi.
One such intelligence file revealed in 1997 reports that eight months after Netaji purportedly death, Mahatma Gandhi had publicly said he believed Netaji was alive.
Acording to Netaji's grand-nephew Chandra Bose, Mahatma Gandhi knew something.
"Gandhi insisted that the Bose family should not perform the shraddh because there is a question mark regarding Subhas Bose's death," he told NDTV.
Gandhiji's belief was based on a secret report which says Nehru received a letter from Bose, saying he was in Russia and that he wanted to escape to India.
According to an American intelligence report prepared in the early 1960s, Netaji could have returned to India sometime in February 1964 — 19 years after it was reported that he died in an air crash in Taihoku, Taiwan. He would have been 67 years old at the time.
Interestingly, Gumnami Baba — the ascetic of Faizabad, who some believe was Netaji — had told select followers, including former INA veterans, about the difficulties India would face from superior powers if his presence became public.
A week ago, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had said there has been a long- standing demand for declassification of Netaji files and 64 files on the freedom fighter lying with the state's home department would be put in public domain.
