Netaji's 'Great Escape' car on road to restoration

Kolkata, Sep 7: The car in which Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose had made his 'great escape' from his ancestral house here in 1941 when he was under house arrest by the then British government, is being restored by his family.

Officials of Netaji Research Bureau (NRB) said German automobile manufacturer Audi has been appointed to restore the four-door German Wanderer sedan, parked at his ancestral home here. "They have now started painting, changing old parts etc.

All we want is to increase the longevity of the car which has great national significance. We want it to be able to drive for small distances like 100 or 200 metres," Kartik Chakraborty, secretary of the bureau said.

The restoration work of the car is expected to be completed by December, he said. It was in this car bearing number plate BLA 7169 that Netaji was driven from Kolkata to Gomoh in Jharkhand by his nephew Sisir Kumar Bose in January 1941.

The car was last driven in 1971 again by Sisir Bose, son of Netaji's elder brother Sarat Chandra Bose while shooting for a documentary of Films Division.

"We had kept it (the car) for public display but it was never brought out on the roads. Our staff Naga Sundaram who used to drive it also passed away," Chakraborty said. NRB is run by Krishna Bose and her son Sugata and is located in Netaji Bhawan, which is the ancestral house of the Bose family.

PTI