Nehru informed Netaji's family of his death in 1962, didn't send 'direct proof'

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday declassified files related to the disappearance of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose in the national capital.

According to the files declassified by the NDA government, former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had in 1962 told the family members of Netaji that he was dead.

Nehru had written a letter to Netaji's brother Suresh Chandra Bose dated May 13, 1962. The former prime minister wrote that he could not send him precise and direct proof of Netaji's death, adding that all the 'circumstantial' evidence of his death has been sent to an enquiry committee.

"The lapse of time now and the extreme improbability of his being alive secretly somewhere when he would be welcomed in India with great joy and affection, adds to circumstantial evidence," the letter said.

CNN-IBN has accessed a letter from Nehru which said there was no question of seeking information if Netaji was on list of war criminals.

Nehru said, "the West will only say that Netaji is dead." He wrote this letter in April 1956 to Suresh Chandra Bose.

The 100 files comprise over 16,600 pages of historic documents, ranging from those of the British Raj to as late as

2013, an official said after the ceremony at the National Archives of India (NAI)

The NAI also plans to release digital copies of 25 declassified files on Bose in the public domain every month.

In October last year, the Prime Minister had met the family members of Netaji and announced that the government would declassify the files relating to the leader whose disappearance 70 years ago remains a mystery.

While two commissions of inquiry had concluded that Netaji had died in a plane crash in Taipei on August 18, 1945, a third probe panel, headed by Justice MK Mukherjee, had contested it and suggested that Bose was alive after that.

The controversy had also split members of the Bose family too. The first lot of 33 files were declassified by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and handed over to the NAI on December 4, last year.

Subsequently, the ministries of Home Affairs and External Affairs too initiated the process of declassification of files relating to Bose in their respective collection which were then transferred over to the NAI, it added.

In his reaction to the declassification, Chandra Kumar Bose, spokesperson of the Bose family and grand-nephew of Subhash Chandra Bose who was present at the ceremony, said "we welcome this step by Prime Minister wholeheartedly. This is a day of transparency in India."

Over the past few days, a UK-based website – www.bosefiles.info - has released a series of witness statements seeking to solve the controversy over the death of Netaji.

The website, run by UK-based independent journalist and Bose's grandnephew Ashis Ray, claimed that its 25 years of investigation and research have showed that Netaji died in a plane crash near Taipei airfield in Taiwan on August 18, 1945.