E-Paper
Himachal Pradesh examiner to study Netaji report
With successive central governments grappling to unravel the mystery shrouding Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s disappearance and death, the office of the government examiner of questioned documents (GEQD) in Shimla will scrutinise documentary evidences gathered by a commission set up during the NDA’s previous tenure at the Centre.
With successive central governments grappling to unravel the mystery shrouding Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s disappearance and death, the office of the government examiner of questioned documents (GEQD) in Shimla will scrutinise documentary evidences gathered by a commission set up during the NDA’s previous tenure at the Centre.
“Documents related to Netaji’s disappearances will be probed by GEQD office in Shimla,” reliable sources told HT, adding that all documents related to Netaji mentioned by the Mukherjee commission in its three-volume report will be scoured.
The GEQD was set up in during the British Raj, when Shimla was the summer capital, to keep a tab on letters and identify writers of subversive literature through handwriting.
The GQED has played instrumental role in many investigations, such as the infamous hawala scam involving Harshad Mehta and JMM bribery case.
GEQD has three offices across the country at Hyderabad, Kolkata and Shimla. Earlier, the central government had mooted a proposal to shift GEQD office from Shimla in 1966 and 1995. The proposal was halted following the intervention of the state’s founder chief ministers YS Parmar and incumbent chief minister Virbhadra Singh.
In 2010, the government also mooted a proposal to merge the office with Central Forensic Laboratory, but the office was relocated back in Shimla.
The GEQD is housed in the railway board building landmark set up by Britishers.
The justice MK Mukherjee commission, set up by the previous NDA government, tabled its report in Parliament in 2006. The commission concluded that Netaji had died, but not in an air crash in 1945 as claimed by media reports in Japan and Taipei.
CONFUSION OVER MYSTERY
The central government had first set up an inquiry in 1956 to unravel Netaji’s mysterious disappearance.
The inquiry, headed by Shah Nawaz Khan, had concluded that Netaji died in air crash.
However, since the controversy kept erupting time and again, in 1970 a committee headed by chief justice of Punjab high court GD Khosla was set up. It had also maintained that Netaji had died in an air crash and his ashes were taken to Tokyo.
