File photo of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose
A close relative of freedom fighter Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose says the family was always aware of surveillance on them and saw it as a sign that he was alive along after he was presumed dead.
"Our family was fully aware of the fact that there was surveillance going on," Netaji's nephew Ardhendu Bose, a former model and businessman, told NDTV today, speaking on the massive controversy following the revelation that relatives of the leader were spied on for two decades.
He said this was taken as proof that the iconic leader didn't actually die in a plane crash in 1945. "My father never believed Netaji died in the plane crash," Mr Bose told NDTV.
Files declassified recently revealed that the Intelligence Bureau kept relatives of Netaji under close surveillance between 1948 and 1968. India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru was in power for 16 of those years.
Mr Bose said his family believed the "only threat" to Jawaharlal Nehru was Subhas Chandra Bose. "If Netaji were really dead and perished in the air crash then why all this? Obviously there was some element of fact that Bose was alive, lurking around somewhere and would make an appearance," he said.
The declassified files have revealed that Netaji's nephews Sisir Kumar Bose and Amiya Nath Bose - sons of his brother Sarat Chandra Bose - were closely monitored.
Intelligence Bureau officials allegedly intercepted and copied letters written by the Bose family and even trailed them on foreign tours.
Netaji quit the Congress party before Independence over differences with Mr Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi and launched his Indian National Army to fight against British rule. But he was said to have died on August 18, 1945, two years before India won freedom.
Netaji's death has been one of the most enduring mysteries in India's history and has been debated for decades. Ardhendu Bose said, "The conjecture is Subhas Bose was made to disappear in Siberia under the powers that be in India at that time."