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Report of the One-man Commission of Inquiry into the Disappearance of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose (1970-74) |
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5. Examination of Certain Hypotheses (...cont'd)
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B1269 is the code number used for Habibur Rahman.
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5.54 The file contains a note to the effect that B1269 bears marks of burns on the face and on both hands, two slight scars in the head and one mark of an injury on the right leg below the knee. There is another note which reads as follows: |
"When asked to explain why Subhas Chandra Bose was badly burnt and he himself was not, B1269 stated that Bose's clothes may have been drenched in petrol, as Bose sat under a petrol tank in the plane. Bose's clothes were of light weight K.D. B1269 wore knee-boots, serge breeches and a serge tunic: his clothes were not burnt at all (he wears them now at CS.D.LC.(I)".
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The report also mentions that at Bose's cremation there were about 30 Japanese medical and military officers present.
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"B1269 does not recollect any of their names. B1269 states that he was the only Indian present at the time. About half an hour after the body had been set alight, B1269 left the crematorium with the others....B1269 carried with him the wooden box containing the ashes of Bose, the two photographs of Bose taken on the 21st August 1945, three photographs of the wrecked plane and a rectangular wrist gold watch with a leather strap."
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5.55 Thus, the statement Habib made in the course of his interrogation did not contain any of the discrepancies which Chakraborty mentions in the course of his statement. Mention of the five photographs which were later produced before the Shah Nawaz Khan Committee was wholly omitted by Shri Chakraborty when he testified before the Commission. We may now quote a passage from the conclusions set out in the report:
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"The main interest in connection with B1269's case lies in the fact that he was the only Indian present at the time Subhas Chandra Bose met with a fatal accident when the plane carrying them crashed soon after taking off from Taihoku aerodrome on 18th August, 1945. B1269 has furnished convincing details that Bose there met his death and was cremated in Taihoku in the presence of several witnesses. If further proof were required these Japanese witnesses might also be located and examined if this has not already been done".
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5.56 The file, therefore, gives the lie direct to Shri Chakraborty's evidence in the present inquiry. Shri Chakraborty's statement appears to have been made in the hope that the file would not be forthcoming and there would be no material to contradict his testimony.
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5.57 The files and reports to which reference has been made above are not more than secondary evidence, the probative value of which cannot compete with what primary evidence yields. Their significance, however, lies in two circumstances. In the first place, these documents were prepared officially by an agency directed to find out the truth and not serve a partisan cause or purpose, nor to make a tendentious report. The Government of India and the Army authorities wanted to know what had happened, and deputed their trusted and reliable officers to enquire, to interrogate individuals and submit the conclusions of their investigation. These officers made direct enquiries, not lending a credulous ear to rumour and gossip. The officers knew that they would be judged by the measure of their competence and honesty in conducting the business entrusted to them. They did not want to, indeed, they did not dare to invent sensational, unwarranted or unsupported stories of deep intrigues, miraculous escapes and fantastic encounters.
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5.58 Secondly, these records were prepared at a very early stage, soon after the occurrences to which they related, when the memories of the persons who spoke about them were fresh, when they had not been influenced by emotional, political or chauvinistic pressures which came into operation in increasing measure, with the passage of time when imaginary or wishful accounts of Bose's disappearance and reappearance began to be related and circulated. Of such nature are Uttam Chand Malhotra's and Dixit's narratives of their strange adventure in the Shaulmari Ashram, Satyanarayan Sinha's flight of imagination and the conjectures of Netaji Mystery by Goswami.
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5.59 I, therefore, find that there is no force in Counsel's argument that the Government of India have deliberately suppressed or destroyed evidence which has a significant bearing on the matters under inquiry. All files have been made available to the Commission, although the contents of these files are strictly speaking, not admissible in evidence. At any rate, the contents do go to rebut the Counsel's contention that doubts were always entertained about Bose's death and that there is material in official records which disproves the story of the aircrash. These files, if they were admissible, would have corroborated the story of the aircrash, but I do not propose to use them for this purpose. At the same time, I cannot hold that there is anything in these files which contravenes the story of the crash or rebuts the evidence of the witnesses who have deposed to it.
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