NEW DELHI: Amid the growing controversy over declassified documents on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, over eight lakh top secret files of Russian spy agencies, including the KGB, SMERSH and GRU, will be declassified and made available to the public.

Among the files dated 1917-1991 are said to be intelligence despatches of Siberian gulags (Russian camp for political prisoners), where Bose was suspected to have been imprisoned along with prisoners of war and political dissidents.

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Kuslov, an ex-Soviet agent, who apparently trained Indians in 1934 and later served a few years in a Siberian gulag, had allegedly confirmed that Bose was kept as a prisoner in Cell No. 45 in Yakutsk prison. Kuslov, who knew Bose, was a Soviet agent in India in the 1930s and had meetings with Bose in Kolkata.

Another spy and prisoner in Siberia, Karl Leonhard, had allegedly admitted that Bose was one of the prisoners. But the then government headed by Jawaharlal Nehru had rubbished such claims terming it American propaganda.

In fact, Dr Satya Narayan Sinha, a former aide of Nehru, had testified under oath of receiving some notes dated 1946 from military missions in Berlin from Gen Stewart and Maj Warren saying that Bose did not die but was suffering at the hands of the Russians.

The decision to declassify the top secret files of State Security (KGB), Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), CHEKA, Prosecution of USSR, NKVD, SMERSH and Ministry of State Security (MGB) was made by the Ukraine Parliament last week. GRU was founded as ‘Registration Directorate’ in 1918 and later in 1942 it was renamed GRU. SMERSH was founded by Stalin in 1943. The KGB was born in March 1954 as Committee for State Security.

After Ukraine’s independence in 1991, these files were kept in the custody of its security service. The Ukraine government is planning an Internet portal to make the records available online.

As per archival materials on the gulags, several camps were erected in Yakutsk on river Lena. Prisoners were employed in building new shafts for coal mines, roads, dams and so on.

Each camp had 500-1,000 prisoners, many of whom died constructing roads in the coldest place on earth.

Govt working to open more files:

Since Express broke the story on the Netaji files in December, the Home Ministry and MEA are working on a framework to open more papers to the public. MEA has 29 files related to Netaji, while PMO has 60 files.

Grand nephew gets Modi Assurance:

Bose’s grand nephew Surya Kumar Bose on Wednesday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Berlin and claimed to have got an assurance that his demand for declassification of all secret files on Netaji would be looked into.