Buoyed by the West Bengal government's decision to publicise files on Subhas Chandra Bose, Netaji's family members on Sunday said they would be meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking declassification of similar files with the central government.The family members would also urge Modi to write to the Russian and British governments for declassifying similar files said to be in the possession of their respective spy agencies."Most of the files that can unravel the Netaji disappearance mystery are with the Indian government. The West Bengal government has shown the way and it is now time for the Centre to act," Netaji's grandnephew and family spokesperson Chandra Kumar Bose told IANS.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday declared declassifying of all state government files on Netaji.At least 64 files on Netaji in possession of the state government will be kept at the city police archive from September 18 for public access.Chandra Kumar said it is also crucial that efforts are made for declassifying secret files on Netaji by the erstwhile KGB as well as the British Secret Intelligence Service."While the Indian government has to act first, we would also urge Modi to write to both the Russian and British governments for providing access to classified documents both by the KGB and the MI6," said Chandra Kumar.
"Russian authorities had told the Justice Mukherjee Commission that if the Indian prime minister writes to Russian government, they may declassify the KGB files. But unfortunately, no such efforts were made then."We have also got a positive reply from the British authorities on the issue after we wrote to them regarding the MI6 files on Netaji. Signs are positive and we are hopeful that Modi will act and fulfill billions of Indians' wish to know what actually happened to Netaji," he said.A section of the family along with researchers would be meeting Modi between October 10 and 14."Since our earlier appointment with Modi could not take place as he had to go on a foreign visit, we got a call from the PMO (Saturday) asking for a next date. We have sent details of the family members and researchers desirous of attending the meeting. The PMO has assured of an appointment in October," he added.Netaji descendants had earlier, too, raised the issue of declassification of files with Modi.