The
Intelligence Bureau (IB) was snooping on the relatives of Subhas Chandra Bose
because while it did not know his whereabouts, it knew for sure that he had not
died in any air crash. “We knew he was not dead, but were not sure where he
was. We suspected he was in the Soviet Union or Japan,“ a retired top official
of IB told TOI.
The entire operation was scripted by Bhola Nath
Mullick, who was director of IB during 1948-68, the retired official revealed.
He further said that Mullick had tremendous hold over the then Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru and was snooping on Netaji's relatives to serve the political
interests of the latter. “We were aware that if Netaji made an appearance
suddenly , he would have given Nehru a run for his position. This was the compelling
reason why it was imperative that Subhas Bose's whereabouts be found out. But
in the end we could never find out where Netaji was,“ the official said,
refusing to be identified.
When asked why it was suspected that Subhas Bose
was in Japan, which had lost World War II, the former sleuth said that was
because Netaji was last officially heard of being in Japanese territory -in
Saigon.
For the purpose of tracing Subhas Bose, Mullick had
also taken the help of MI-5, the British Intelligence agency . Intelligence
gathered by the IB was shared with the British agency and sometimes help was
taken from MI-5 to develop the leads further, the former sleuth said. In fact,
an MI-5 liaison office was allowed to be operated from New Delhi. Often data
about financial help given by the USSR to the Communist Party and other
agencies was forwarded to MI-5 so that it could be analysed by the British
agency .
London was interested in what was happening behind
the Iron Curtain because the Cold War had begun almost immediately after the
conclusion of World War II.
“It was for the yeoman's service rendered to Nehru
that Mullick continued in his position for two long decades. Nehru could not
think of allowing him to go,“ the retired sleuth, who later served in the
Research and Analyses Wing, said.
Incidentally, Mullick belonged to Calcutta, the
same city as Subhas Bose, but had cultivated an anti-Netaji sentiment because
that is what worked in the Nehru regime, said the IB official who now lives in
quiet retirement. He worked in India's Intelligence outfits from the 1950s
through to the 1990s.Although an IPS officer, he spent his entire career in
Intelligence. “We reasoned that Subhas Bose, wherever he was, would try get in
touch with his close relatives -like nephews Amiya Nath Bose and Sisir Bose.
That is why their correspondence was intercepted and they were snooped upon.
Since we averred that Bose could have been in Japan, the IB tried hard to
figure out the agenda of Amiya Nath Bose when he visited Japan in 1957,“ the
ex-IB official told TOI. The interception of the mails of Bose family members
was organised by the IB office in Calcutta, the head of which was a favourite
of Mullick.
It is interesting to note that even while IB was
trying to find Netaji, the Nehru government, in its public utterances, kept on
insisting that Subhas Bose had died in the air crash.Even an official committee
under Shah Nawaz Khan was set up in 1956 -which insisted that Netaji had died
in the air crash. The report was accepted by the government, although Netaji's
brother Suresh Bose filed a dissent report stating that he could not have
perished in the crash.
Khan, a former Indian National Army (INA) officer
had, by the time he had been appointed head of the committee, become a member
of the Nehru establishment and a deputy minister at the Centre.In fact, for
starters, the committee was to be a citizen's committee and was slated to be
headed by Justice Radha Bi node Pal. But the moment Justice Pal's name came up,
the Nehru government swung into action and converted it to an `official'
committee, headed by Shah Nawaz Khan.
Justice Radha Binode Pal was a member of the
international war tribunal for the Far East that tried the Japanese after World
War II. The tribunal sentenced many , including the then Japanese Prime
Minister H Tojo, to death. But Justice Pal wrote a dissent report saying that
the Japanese were not guilty and that a victor's justice was being meted out to
them. This implies that Justice Pal, if he were to be the head of the Netaji
Inquiry Committee, would have done a proper job.
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