West Bengal govt to make public Netaji files

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday announced that 64 files on Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose lying with the state's home department would be declassified and put in public domain from next Friday.

Acknowledging that there was a long-standing demand for the declassification of the files on Netaji, Banerjee said that there might be one or two more files in the possession of the government. "A total of 64 files are there with us. There maybe another one or two more files. After properly reviewing all the files, we have decided to put them in public domain from next Friday," she said.

"We decided to release the files so that everybody can see them. We don't feel that there is anything related to internal security in the files. Everybody wants to know about what happened to Netaji. He was a brave son of our soil and he was from Bengal," she added.

Asked if the state would request the Centre to declassify files it has in its possession, Banerjee said, "It is for the Centre to decide, but we want the truth about Netaji to come out. It is for the journalist to find out what happened to him."

Banerjee also announced that the record of the freedom struggle from 1937 to 1947 would be digitised in order to preserve history.

Image: Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose