'Assassination in defence of Empire'

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UK ordered Netaji's assassination: Scholar

 

"Bose undoubtedly planned rebellion to set India free. But the usual

remedy for that was prosecution or detention, not unavowed

assassination. He was to die because he had a large following in India,"

O'Halpin said in his address 'Assassination in defence of Empire:

Subhas Chandra Bose and British Intelligence, 1939-45'.

 

Press Trust of India

Kolkata, August 14, 2005

Adding a new twist to the mysteries surrounding the life and

disappearance of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, an Irish scholar on

Sunday claimed British Foreign Office had ordered assassination of the

great leader in March, 1941 during his great escape from India.

 

According to Professor Eunan O'Halpin of Trinity College, Dublin,

Ireland, the British Foreign Office had ordered assassination of Netaji in

March, 1941 and reconfirmed the order in June that year.

 

Learning from a decode of an Italian telegram on February 27, 1941, that

Subhas Bose may be in Kabul, the British Foreign office had asked the

British minister there if he had any local clue in confirmation, O'Halpin, a

professor of history, said while delivering the 'Sisir Kumar Bose lecture'

at the Netaji Research Bureau (NRB) in Kolkata.

 

He said that on March seven, the British Special Operations Executive

(SOE), formed in 1940 for sabotage, underground propaganda and other

clandestine activities, informed its representatives in Istanbul and Cairo

that Bose "was understood to be travelling from Afghanistan to Germany

via Iran, Iraq and Turkey".

 

"They were badly asked "to wire what arrangements they could make

for his assassination," the professor said.

 

O'Halpin, who handed over documents seeking to support of his claims

to NRB chairperson Krishna Bose, said "even in the midst of war, this

was a remarkable instruction".

 

"Bose undoubtedly planned rebellion to set India free. But the usual

remedy for that was prosecution or detention, not unavowed

assassination. He was to die because he had a large following in India,"

O'Halpin said in his address 'Assassination in defence of Empire:

Subhas Chandra Bose and British Intelligence, 1939-45'.

 

Chairing the lecture, Professor Sugata Bose, Gardiner Professor of

History at Harvard University and grand-nephew of Netaji, said the

British decision to assassinate Bose more than sixty years ago should

not create any diplomatic difficulties at present.

 

"But it is incumbent on the British and Indian governments to make

public all documents relating to Netaji under the new freedom of

information regimes so that the historical record may be clarified and

the full saga of the daring life and work of India's greatest revolutionary is

revealed to the younger generation," Bose, said who said to have

recently met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and apprised him of the

findings of the professor, added.

 

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1461791,000900030001.htm?

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