'Netaji' dead, mystery alive

After a six-year investigation, the report published on Wednesday said Bose was dead but was not killed in a plane crash as widely believed.

But the report said it could not say how he died, and its conclusions were contradicted by the government, which backed the plane crash theory.

The investigation also said that the ashes in a temple in Japan were not that of Bose -- again rejected by the government.

"The government has examined the report ... and has not agreed with the findings that Netaji did not die in the plane crash and the ashes in the Renkoji Temple were not of Netaji," a government statement said without elaborating.

Bose, popularly known as "Netaji" or leader, led the rebel Indian National Army that fought British colonial rule in India in an alliance with the Japanese during World War Two.

Earlier, official reports said Bose died in a Japanese air crash in Taiwan in August, 1945 at the age of 48 and his cremated remains were sent to Japan.

But Taiwanese authorities denied this, saying there was no record of an air crash at the time, boosting the claim of those who believe Bose faked the crash to escape secretly to the former Soviet Union.

The debate raged for decades until New Delhi set up a panel headed by former Supreme Court judge M.K. Mukherjee in 1999 to investigate his mysterious disappearance and report his whereabouts if he was still alive.

The panel submitted its report to the government in November and it was tabled in parliament on Wednesday, along with the government's response.

Bose remains an iconic figure in the eastern state of West Bengal, his home state, and his role in India's freedom movement is taught in schools across the country where his statues have been erected.

Those who believe Bose was not killed in the air crash say he returned to India from the Soviet Union after World War Two and lived in his homeland in the guise of a Hindu monk and died eventually in 1985.

But no one has been able to explain why he kept his identity a secret if he did return to India.