Ex-principal claims Netaji was alive till 1977

The Mukherjee Commission led by secretary P.K. Sengupta was here for three days to hear Padhye and check the veracity of his claims. The Commission says it will take some time to comment on Padhye’s credibility.

Sengupta said on Monday the panel would use the latest scientific knowledge to do a DNA analysis of Netaji’s ashes. ‘‘We have also taken blood samples from three Netaji descendants and would employ handwriting experts to establish the truth,’’ he said.

Padhye, however, is more than sure that the man he saw was Netaji. ‘‘I visited his Shaulmari Ashram in West Bengal, where he lived as Sharadanand Baba, regularly till 1971, and was in his charmed circle. A cut near his left eyebrow, a slight squint and straight nose, his 5-9’ frame and the handwriting in letters he wrote to me proved it was him,’’ Padhye, who retired as principal of the local VMV College, says.

Impressed by a 1962 article by Marathi litterateur P.K. Atre on the latter’s visit to Shaulmari Ashram, Padhye wrote to the Baba in 1964 expressing a desire to meet him.

‘‘In 1965, a Nagpur paper published a report that the ashram was a hotbed of spies. The ashram asking me to come over with 10 copies of the paper,’’ he says.

‘‘That was the turning point. I went there. Initially, I was a suspect, what with the ashram being under close intelligence scrutiny due to reports that Baba was actually Netaji. But slowly, I won Baba’s confidence,’’ he adds.

Showing pictures he took of the man, Padhye says: ‘‘No one else has such pictures as Baba wouldn’t allow himself to be photographed.’’

About the Intelligence chase, Padhye says Nehru was worried the country would rally behind Netaji if he were to surface. ‘‘Netaji had once commented that Jawaharlal had the greatest greatness and meanest meanness,’’ he says.

Why did Khosla Commission of 1971 not check his claims? ‘‘The commission wanted me to go to Calcutta. I said I can’t, and invited it to Amravati. I insisted I be questioned in-camera to which it didn’t respond,’’ he says.

‘‘In 1976, I went to see Netaji again, this time at Dehra Dun. By this time, none of his INA friends was hiding his identity. So I asked him why he didn’t disclose it. He said ‘he was no more the boyish ambitious Subhash’,’’ Padhye says.