British intelligence agency plotted to assassinate Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose?

New Delhi: The seventh batch of 25 declassified files related to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was released on Tuesday. The files pertained to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) from 1951 to 2006.

As per documentation available in the current batch, an Irish historian had revealed that the Special Operation Committee (SOE) of the British intelligence agency had conspired to assassinate Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

Threatened by the prospect of Netaji advancing towards the far East, the SOF had directed its agents in Istanbul (Turkey) and Cairo (Egypt) to capture and assassinate Bose, reported The Indian Express.

Since Bose reached Germany via Moscow, the plot had failed.

 

The declassified files also revealed that India had agreed to share with Pakistan the funds of freedom fighter Bose's Indian National Army (INA) and Indian Independence League (IIL) in 1953.

This was revealed in a note which was enclosed with a letter dated October 18, 1953, by former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru to then West Bengal chief minister BC Roy.

 

The first lot of 100 files related to Netaji were put in public domain by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 23 on the occasion of the freedom fighter's 119th birth anniversary.

The second lot of 50 files was released in March and 25 files each were put in public domain in the subsequent months.

 

The disappearance of Netaji 70 years ago still remains a mystery with two Commissions of Inquiry concluding that he had died in a plane crash in Taipei on August 18, 1945, while a third probe panel, headed by Justice MK Mukherjee, had contested it and suggested that Bose had survived the crash.