Kolkata: Dubbing Netaji a “national icon”, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said people deserve to know about Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s last days.”We will make all files and documents relating to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose public on September 18″, she announced at the state secretariat Nabanno located in Kolkata twin Howrah district.

These files and documents would be opened to the public at the Kolkata Police archives. We want to maintain transparency and accountability. People must know about Netaji Banerjee”, said the Bengal CM.

The Centre had earlier this year refused to declassify Bose files in its possession, but the latest move of the Mamata government is sure to put the former in a tight spot.

The mystery surrounding the death of INA founder and iconic freedom fighter Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose refuses to die down even after 70 years of speculation.  Bannerjee said, “We know Netaji’s date of birth but we have no idea about his demise. People deserve to know about his last days”. Netaji’s story is an enigma that continues to haunt the popular imagination in India. Did he die of third-degree burns on August 18, 1945, after his plane crashed in Formosa (now Taiwan) or did he survive and escape to Siberia? Or was the ‘crash’ a mere hoax to help him flee to safety? She also said that  the state government would also take initiatives to digitise all files from 1937-1947.

Researchers and historians have been elated at the West Bengal government’s decision to declassify hitherto secret files on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose on September 18. The declassification of Bose files in possession of the Centre is being seen as the next obvious way forward.

Activist and author of India’s Biggest Cover-Up on the issue of Netaji’s death, Anuj Dhar, who has spent 15 years researching on the subject welcomed Mamata Banerjee’s move. “Now the time has come for the Centre to stop making excuses and divulge the secrets that lie in the files in its possession,” Dhar told MAIL TODAY.