Page 7 - Pastiche Vol 1 Edition 1 January 2019

Figgess Report 1946
Lord Mountbatten appointed Colonel John Figgess, to investigate into ‘Subhash Bose's Death’.
Figgess interviewed with two survivors of the plane crash, Lt. Cols. Nonogaki and Sakai, Dr.
Yoshimi, and with others involved in post-death arrangements.

A crucial paragraph in the Figgess report reads:
"As a result of a series of interrogations of individuals named in the following paragraphs it is
confirmed as certain that S.C. Bose died in a Taihoku Military Hospital (Nammon Ward)
sometime between 1700 hours and 2000 hours local time on the August 18, 1945. The cause of
death was heart failure resulting from multiple burns and shock. All the persons named below
were interrogated at different times but the several accounts of the event agree both in
substance and detail at all points where the knowledge of the subjects could have been deemed
to be based on common experience. The possibility of a pre-arranged fabrication must be
excluded since most of the individuals concerned had no opportunity of contact with one
another prior to interrogation."

Shah Nawaz Committee 1956
The Government of India in 1956 appointed a three-man committee known as the "Shah
Nawaj Committee" or the "Netaji Inquiry Committee", headed by Shah Nawaz Khan -
Member of Parliament and former Lieutenant Colonel in the Indian National Army and best-
known defendant in the INA Trials, S. N. Maitra - ICS, nominated by the Government of West
Bengal, and Suresh Chandra Bose, an elder brother of Subhash Bose.

The committee interviewed 67 witnesses in India, Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam, including
survivors of the plane crash, Dr. Yoshimi, and Habib ur Rahman. Despite few evidential
discrepancies, Khan and Maitra, concluded that Bose had died in the stated plane crash.
Suresh Chandra Bose, however, after signing the initial conclusions, declined to sign the final
report and complained that the other members and staff of the Committee had deliberately
withheld some crucial evidence from him, that the committee had been directed
by Jawaharlal Nehru to infer death by plane crash, and that the other committee members
and Bengal Chief Minister B. C. Roy, had bluntly pressured him to sign the conclusions of
their final report.

Khosla Commission 1970
In 1970, the Government of India appointed a new "one-man commission" - G. D. Khosla,
retired Chief Justice, Punjab High Court to enquire into Bose’s "disappearance“. The reports
submitted in 1974, not only concurred with the earlier reports, but also evaluated
explanations of Bose's disappearance and the motives of promoting Netaji sighting stories as
“driven by political goals”.

Mukherjee Commission 2005
On 1999, following a court order to probe into the death of Bose, a commission under retired
Supreme Court judge Manoj Kumar Mukherjee visited Japan, Russia and Taiwan, examined
several files from different countries on Bose's death, and also investigated the case of
"Gumnami Baba" as a ‘link’ to the case of Netaji. The commission concluded that the oral
accounts in favour of the plane crash are unreliable and that there was a secret plan of Bose's
safe passage to USSR with the knowledge of Japanese authorities and Habibur Rahman. And
that the ashes kept at the Renkoji temple, reported to be Bose's, were of Ichiro Okura.

The Mukherjee Commission submitted its report on November 8, 2005, and was tabled in
the Indian Parliament on May 17, 2006. But the Indian Government led by the Indian
National Congress, rejected the findings of the commission.
(CONTINUED)
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