Declare Netaji ''national martyr'': Left

New Delhi, Aug 2: The Left parties today demanded in the Lok Sabha that the Manmohan Singh government declare Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose a ''national martyr'' even as it criticised it for taking the Justice Mukherjee Commission Report in a ''casual manner''.

''The present government has not only rejected the Commission Report but has not spelled out any reasons or explanations for the same,'' Promod Panda (CPI) said, while initiating the discussion on the report of Justice Mukherjee Commission of Inquiry regarding alleged disapearance of Mr Bose and Memorandum of Action taken by the Government on the report laid on the Table of House on May 17, 2006.

During his 45-minute spirited speech, he cited ''serious remarks'' the Commission had made about the government's attitude to it. ''Even some of the files and documents were not shown to the Commission,'' he added.

Hailing Mr Bose as the ''tallest and most charismatic leader of country's freedom struggle'', the CPI leader said the government's not being ''agreeable'' to the Commission's findings made the controversy ''more confusing and more mysterious.'' ''The reasons put forward by the government denying the Commission's Report are shallow. While it was supposed to lay the Action Taken Report within six months, it had delayed it on the flimsy grounds like printing problems, and the adjournment of the House.

Forward Bloc leader and Netaji's nephew Subrata Bose recalled Netaji's heroic deeds and ''great sense of sacrifice for the cause of the motherland.''

Providing detailed information of the mysterious death of Netaji, Mr Bose narated incidents which only creates doubts in the minds of the people about his demise. He said this matter was evident from the fact that Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi, soon after reports of Netaji's death were received, wrote a letter to his family not to observe the 'Shraddh' ceremony.

''It is strange that the Shah Nawaz Commission, which first probed the death of Netaji, sought information from the Taiwan Goverment in respect of the air crash and other related documents.

It was conveyed to them through the British Goverment and the Taiwan Goverment that all those informations were provided through the British Goverment but these informations were not provided to the Shah Nawaz Commission.

Significantly, these documents were not provided by the government to the Justice Mukherjee Commission, which had specifically asked for them. They were that all those files have been destroyed.

The discussion remained inconclusive and will be resumed tomorrow.

UNI