The family members of Subhas Chandra Bose today hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement about declassifying secret files related to Netaji and hoped that the "historic" decision would finally lift the veil over his mysterious disappearance.
"Today actually is the independence day for India as documents on Netaji will be declassified," said Netaji's great grand nephew Chandra Kumar Bose, who was among 35 members of Bose's family who met Modi at his residence this evening.
"It is the will of PM, the work (declassification) will be done," he said about Modi's promise to start unveiling the files from January 23 next year.
He noted that the earlier governments tended to "hide" these files whereas Modi had decided to make them public.
Hailing the decision, Netaji's niece Chitra Ghosh hoped that declassification would give answers to so many theories that have been going around about Bose.
Criticising the previous governments for not taking such a decision, she said she was hoping that the Prime Minister would agree to declassify the files but was not expecting him to give a specific date for the same.
"It came as really surprising," she said.
"He extended lots of hope to us saying that January 23 will be the first step of declassification. Finally, there is hope that the veil over Netaji's death will be removed, as the PM himself has assured us," said another relative Arya Bose.
Abheejet Ray, a nephew of Bose, said, "The Prime Minister agreed to the need for declassification of files and papers on Netaji and INA. He said like you I also feel from the heart that these papers should be out and declassified."
Quoting Modi, he said that "every good occasion had to be a good day and that is why he has chosen January 23 next year, the day Netaji was born, as a milestone from where the process of declassification of files on Netaji and INA will start.
