Centre Plan To Get Netaji's Ashes In 90s Dropped On Riot Warning: Relative
NDTV
Ashish Ray, also a researcher on the freedom fighter, said legal rights to the ashes should belong to Netaji's daughter Prof. Anita Bose Pfaf
The P V Narasimha Rao government in the 1990s had been on the verge of bringing to India the ashes, believed to be of Subhas Chandra Bose now kept at the Renkoji Temple in Japan, but was dissuaded from doing so due to an intelligence report, which warned that controversy surrounding the issue could lead to riots in Kolkata, a grandnephew of Netaji said.
Making a fervent plea for bringing back the ashes kept in an urn in the Buddhist shrine in Tokyo since September 1945, Ashish Ray, also an author and researcher on the legendary freedom fighter, said the legal rights to them should belong to Netaji's daughter Prof. Anita Bose Pfaf, an economist living in Germany, and the Indian government should allow her to take charge of it.
Mr Ray was speaking at a virtual seminar to commemorate the 78th anniversary of the founding of the Azad Hind Government by Bose, on Thursday, organised by the Indo-Japan Samurai Centre in collaboration with the Ministry of External Affairs.
The author whose books include "Laid to Rest'' on the controversy over Netaji's death, said a high-powered committee that included Pranab Mukherjee, who later became President, was set up by then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao to look into the issue of bringing back the ashes.
