Islamabad, June 22: Pakistan’s former foreign secretary Shahryar Khan says he has “no reason to doubt” that Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose died in a plane crash in 1945.
“I have no reason to doubt Habib-ur-Rehman’s story of Bose’s death, and I believe it ought to put to rest many of the theories (and conspiracy theories) regarding the death of the charismatic Indian nationalist leader,” Khan wrote in the Friday Times quoting Habib-ur-Rehman, a former Brigadier of the Indian National Army who was with Bose on the ill-fated aircraft.
During a trip to Sinkiang in 1967, Rehman told Khan that he was in the aircraft with Bose which took off from Taipei (now Taiwan). “The aircraft crashed. Habib-ur-Rehman told me that while he himself survived the crash and rushed to the side of his leader, Bose was close to death,” Khan wrote.
“According to him, Bose died because his clothing caught fire from the flames of the burning aircraft. He was taken to a nearby hospital but died from his burns,” he said.
Khan, who was in-charge of the China desk in Pakistan’s foreign ministry in 1967, was leading a delegation to that country to encourage trade between the two countries.
Rehman was part of his delegation as a representative of the administration of the Northern Areas in Pakistan.
During that trip, Rehman would stay indoors in the evenings and talk to Khan. It was during one of these conversations that Rehman told Khan about the death of Bose.
With the Japanese losing the war in 1945, Bose tried to reach Japan to make another appeal for assistance. He took off from Taipei but the aircraft crashed.
After the fall of Japan, Rehman was repatriated to India. Following the partition of India in 1947, Rehman chose to settle in Pakistan. On his retirement from government service, he joined politics.
Rehman died in December 1978.
–Agencies