If there is a second part to the mystery of Netaji's disappearance, it is the huge INA funds that vanished in 1945. Latest estimate by a leading researcher into the Bose mystery puts it to the tune of "a staggering 70,000 crores rupees" at a time when 4 rupees were all you needed to get a dollar.

At its peak, the Provisional Government of Azad Hind comprised 60,000 soldiers and other staff. Till the end, Netaji ensured that this gargantuan force was regularly paid salaries. Besides, Netaji could repay his massive debt to Germany and also earmark Rs 2,00,000 for a mausoleum for Bahadur Shah Zafar in Delhi's Red Fort.

Never the one to solely rely on his foreign allies, Netaji succeeded in building up an impressive reserve in Azad Hind Bank. For a cause as worthy as that of Netaji, Indians in South-East Asia donated liberally.

Worth recalling is the case of one Habib Sahib of Rangoon who gave away, at one time, all his estate in landed property, cash and jewellery valued at over one crore. In return, he asked from Netaji a pair of Khaki shirt and shorts so that he might work for the independence.

Days before his disappearance, Netaji is said to have made heavy payments. Eight crore yens were withdrawn from Japanese Bank and part of it was spent in payments to INA and civilian personnel. On August 17, 1945, just before leaving Bangkok, Netaji made large last-minute gifts of 1.5 million ticals to Chulalongkorn Hospital and University and sanctioned two to three months' pay to all officers and men of the INA.

What happened after August 18 remains shrouded in mystery. The INA men and women had to run helter-skelter for their life and their troubles did not end with the independence. No one talked about the INA reserves and no one showed any interest. General belief ran that the British confiscated the INA reserves.

Professor Purabi Roy, the researcher who has estimated the worth of INA funds and who is a prominent deponent before the Mukherjee commission, has some light to throw on the issue.

While conducting her research in Moscow and England she pursued a war time major of MI5 who had snooped around Bose. Roy met the agent in Oxford and he told her that a huge amount of 'INA money' was handed over to Lord Mountbatten and a senior Congress leader in Singapore, and that is the key to Bose's disappearance (and the subsequent reluctance to unravel the mystery) could be solved to a great extent by ascertaining the route that the funds travelled."

The popular perception about the 'missing INA treasure' veers around the valuables Netaji was carrying with him when his plane crashed. The remains of this treasure are presently in the National Museum in Delhi.

For years, people talked about valuables Netaji's had with him on the plane but in the light of claims about the Azad Hind Bank money, it appears to have been a case of missing wood for trees.