Lal Bahadur Shastri's death was not natural, claims his family

NEW DELHI: Amid the ongoing controversy and mystery over Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's death, former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri's family has demanded that all files related to his death should be made public.

In an interview to news channel CNN-IBN, Lal Bahadur Shastri's son and Congress leader Anil Shastri said that his father's death did not look natural.

"When my father's body came to the Delhi airport, the Palam airport as it was called then, and when it was taken out of the aircraft, that came as a shock because his body had turned blue. His face had turned blue and there were white spots on the temple," Anil Shastri told the news channel.

"The moment my mother saw the body, she straight away came to the conclusion that it was not a natural death," Anil Shastri said.

"My mother told the family that it was a foul play," Anil Shastri said.

Anil Shastri urged the Prime Minister that documents related to Lal Bahadur Shastri's death should be declassified.

Anil Shastri called it "unbelievable" that the Prime Minister's room in the capital of then Soviet Uzbekistan had "no call bell, no telephone, no caretaker in his room and no first aid. He had to walk up to the door himself." He alleged that the death was due to fault done by the Indian embassy and termed it as "height of negligence".

"His death was badly handled by the Indian government. It hurts me to a great extent," he said.

Opining that Shastri was not taken "seriously", he said: "Post-mortem could have been done in Tashkent if there was a request from the Indian government or a request from the Indian doctors."

"... some close associates feel that suspicion revolves around an Indian hand or a foreign power," he said.

Anil Shastri claimed that his father had come to know about a scam involving a shipping tycoon Dharam Teja.

Citing an article by eminent journalist Khushwant Singh, Shastri claimed Teja was in Tashkent at the time of his father's death.

He also claimed that the Prime Minister was likely to take action and order an inquiry against Teja after his return to India.

Shastri and then Pakistani president, Field Marshal Ayub Khan, had been invited to Tashkent by then Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin for peace talks following the Indian-Pakistan War in 1965. An agreement was signed on January 10, 1966 but Shastri was found dead a few hours later, having suffered cardiac arrest.

Raising suspicions over the hand of a foreign power in his death, Anil Shastri said: "...Lal Bahadur Shastri had suddenly gained a lot of power, when he retaliated with full force against Pakistan. Whether it was America, China or any third country... I cannot name any country but the truth is Lal Bahadur Shastri was becoming very strong in the region."

He also raised the sudden death of Dr RN Chugh, the personal physician accompanying the Prime Minister. Chugh died in an accident with his family.

Anil Shastri also added that his father's personal assistant too met with an accident, was crippled and lost his memory.

He also expressed concern over his father's missing red personal diary.

"He made daily notings in it and may have even written about the Tashkent agreement and the pressures he was under," he said.