Netaji's family demands judicial probe into snooping

Kolkata: Expressing shock over reported revelations that successive Congress governments had snooped on family members of revolutionary leader Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose for 20 years after independence, a prominent member of the clan on Friday demanded a judicial probe on the issue.

Family spokesperson Chandra Kumar Bose also demanded that the Narendra Modi government declassify the secret files related to Netaji, and the clan.

"It is shocking. It is not an issue involving merely the family, but the entire nation, because several members of the family from Sarat Chandra Bose to Amiya Nath Bose as also Sisir Kumar Bose were prominent freedom fighters," Chandra Kumar Bose said.

He said while it was understandable that the British government would snoop on the family because of its fight against imperialism, "that the central government in post-independence India could do it, that is too shocking".

"It is an attack on democracy, personal liberty and the spirit of the freedom movement, a betrayal of the nation," he said.

"A judicial inquiry commission should be constituted, and a special investigative team should be formed under the commission. The commission should report to a sitting judge of the Supreme Court," he said.

He said the probe should cover the entire sequence of events from circumstances leading to Netaji's disappearance to the spying on the family members after independence.

Bose said the Modi government has been talking of transparency all along. "If they are sincere to what they claim, then they should order declassification of over 160 files still kept secret."

Media reports have claimed that recently declassified files of the union home ministry have revealed that the family of Netaji was placed under intensive surveillance from 1948 to 1968 by the central government.

The country had three Congress prime ministers during these 20 years - Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi.