Declassification of Netaji files to reveal 'face mapping' issue: BJP

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday expressed hope that declassification of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose files will reveal the mystery behind the "face mapping" that shows that Netaji might have been present at the Indo-Pak peace talks in Tashkent in 1966, with erstwhile prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri.

"In a newspaper today, there is a revelation on Netaji appearing in a photograph with Shastri in Tashkent. I hope the declassification of Netaji's files, which are beginning from January23. It will also throw light on the photograph," BJP leader Siddharth Nath Singh told the media in Lucknow.

"I do recall that my father had mentioned that from Tashkent, Shastriji had spoken to him and said he met one of the nationalist leaders and the country would be happy, I am trying to bring the person to India. This needs demystification. We hope the same will happen with the declassification of Netaji files," he added.

Netaji researchers have produced a forensic face-mapping report by a British expert that has found strong resemblance between Bose and a man photographed Shastri during the Indo-Pak peace talks in Tashkent in 1966.

The photograph is being held as evidence that Netaji didn't die in the plane crash in Taihoku in 1945 and validates a recent claim by Shastri's grandson Siddharth Nath Singh that Shastri had met someone who was considered an icon back home, while in the Soviet Union.

According to reports, researchers will now urge Prime Minister Modi to take up the issue of Netaji's death with Russian President Vladimir Putin when the former visits Lucknow later this month.

The Modi government has begun the process of declassification of Netaji files and the first batch of 33 files were handed over to the National Archives in October and would be made public on January 23, 2016, Netaji's birth anniversary.

Earlier, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had released 64 files related to Netaji.