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Netaji's family demands judicial probe into snooping
Kolkata, April 10
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 told IANS.
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.