Page 7 - Pastiche Vol 1 Edition 1 January 2019
P. 7

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.
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