by Anuj Dhar
But then, we do know how police functions in this country over cases of political significances. I am just reading a report in the Times of India which says that the Delhi Police after a thorough inquiry has not been able to find any evidence linking any politician to one of the biggest political scandals of our times when bagsful of money were supplied to lawmakers to vote in favour of the Congress-led government. But no one is surprised that the cops can’t get at the truth many times. There are things beyond them. So far my memory serves me, no one ever said the UP Police was the Scotland Yard of the East.
The 1985 police inquiry was wholly inadequate. Some junior cops went around and queried a few Bhagwanji followers with a view to extracting from them “any solid evidence to suggest that this person was, in fact, Netaji”. Some did not know much, others were afraid and some others took resort to evasion. Knowing how our baton-wielding cops generally behave, they must have spoken in threatening tones. The report says that “a police party was sent to Calcutta to talk to Dr Pabitra Mohan Roy and other associates of ‘Netaji’ but none of them were able to give any information about this matter and, in fact, they appeared to be reticent about providing any information to the police”.
Local media published the transcript of Pabitra’s examination in 1986. Going throught it, even a Grade X student could tell that he was being untruthful and concealing something. So how could the wily cops not see through it? Some of them had told the media when the controversy was raging that handwritings and fingerprints could offer a way out.
So why was that not done? Local journalists told me that a handwriting expert brought by the police had actually compared a few samples and he turned pale. You know what happens when people turn pale; they develop cold feet and they can’t put their fingers on anything.
According to the police report, when they scoured through Bhagwanji’s room in September 1985,
a large number of belongings and literature associated with the “Indian National Army” in general and Sri Subhas Chandra Bose in particular came to light. There were a large number of family photographs, reports of inquiry commission related to the death of ‘Netaji’ etc. It also transpired that a special ceremony used to be held in the room of ‘Bhagwanji’ on very 23 rd January which incidentally is the birthday of Sri Subhas Chandra Bose and on this date no person of Faizabad was apparently allowed to visit him. But some persons from Calcutta used to come and stay with him for that day.
Not very much intrigued by all this, the SSP concluded that “on inquiry it could not be ascertained as to who was the deceased man”, which in plain English means that police found no clear clue about Bhagwanji’s identity.
The report also stated that the “state government has been informed of the inquiry conducted by the police in this matter and further instructions of the government are awaited”. The waiting game continues till date. I fail to see how in the intervening period it was given out that the police inquiry had proven that Bhagwanji was not Bose when all it had was to prove nothing.
That’s one side of the story, you might say. “OK, the matter was cursorily inquired into in those days. But today we do have handwriting and DNA reports disapproving the claim that Bhagwanji was Bose!”
Let’s begin with the handwriting reports. Back in 1985 people could spot similarities between Bhagwanji’s and Netaji’s handwritings. Lalita Bose identified Bhagwanji’s handwritings as those of her uncle. I am told that Nirmal Nibedon too had sought the opinion of an expert and though the expert was nodding in affirmative on the match, he was unwilling to give his opinion in writing or come on record. Lest we forget, the Congress party held sway across the country at that time.
“Oh, keep this out now!” You might like to rejoin.
I can’t. The political setting is a key factor in the Bose mystery. Foreigners can't understand this, but we must not overlook this if we want to take an objective, 360-degree view.
“I know; no need to remind me of all that” could be your response.
Not you, but there are a lot many youngsters around. Their impressionable minds have been bombarded with the propagandist fillers on state-controlled TV and adulatory print adverts issued by the ministries. Those years of 1985-86—those “good old days” when “pesky” Opposition and media were hardly the “troublemakers” as they are now—were not conducive for a fair inquiry into any issue which could have impacted the Congress-led government negatively. Congressmen’s orders were treated as holy writs. Generations to come will scarcely believe how thousands of innocent men, women and children were chased through the streets, butchered in their homes, burnt alive by mobs in New Delhi in November 1984. The Government never carried out a fair inquiry. Covering up the Faizabad issue was a child’s play if you ask me.
“But I have heard someone saying that those handwriting samples at Rambhawan could have been planted?”
Considering the huge spectrum of Bhagwanji’s handwritings written across decades, it is impossible that anyone could have planted all of them, not just in Rambhawan, but also in several other places. Specimens of Bhagwanji’s writings are there in private hands in Kolkata and other places.
It is scientifically impossible for a man to write in someone else’s handwriting across thirty years or so. Any seasoned expert could easily make that out.
“So, were the samples ever shown to any good expert?”
In 2001, I approached B Lal Kapoor on behalf of Hindustan Times. A former Chief Government Examiner of Questioned Documents, B Lal is famed as one of the all-time greats of his field. He honed his skills in several forensic labs in the US, the UK, Germany and Switzerland during his service years. Post-retirement he was included on the panel of experts in several government departments and banks, such as the State Bank of India and Citi. Even after retirement, he was getting flooded with cases by the authorities and invited to give lectures to officials and even judges on the aspects of handwriting testing. During the 87th Indian Science Congress in 2000, he was awarded the life-time achievement award in forensic sciences.
B Lal gave a positive report to Hindustan Times—an unbiased, mainstream newspaper with no special love for Bose. Later, he was engaged by the Mukherjee Commission. Working on different samples, he produced two far more detailed and convincing reports. Applying the fundamentals of the forensic testing of questioned documents outlined by AS Osborn and Wildon R Harrison, he found that the English samples picked up from Rambhawan (questioned documents) were “written by the same person” who wrote the admitted handwritings of Subhas Bose. “It has been found that in spite of time gap there are fundamental similarities.”
Through intense comparison of admitted writing of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose…it has been shown that he is a skilful writer having at his command more than one variety of letters. Such pattern…is also found in the relevant questioned English writings and such similarities are quite characteristic in nature and have great identifying value.
Regarding the Bangla handwritings, he wrote in a separate report that
the questioned Bengali writing are having time gap of few years when compared with the date of execution of admitted Bengali writing. …Even having time gap, the relevant questioned Bengali writing and relevant Bengali writing are showing characteristic similarities with natural variations and the collective occurrence of such similarities may not be found in the writings of two different persons as a matter of chance. The collective occurrence of significant similarities can only be explained by the fact that both the writings belong to one and the same person.
He further pointed out:
As found in the case of English writings, even in the case of Bengali writings, the writer has got a habit to write quite small-size letters utilizing every available space. This is a sort of idiosyncrasy of the writer and is found both in the case of questioned and admitted handwritings.
[Bhagwanji’s comment on a postal acknowledgement slip: Delivered on 22.4.79 by a shopkeeper; to whom, the Postman gave this!!! A
true example of “free India’s freedom-of-Postal Service”.]
Kapoor also discovered that the writer of both admitted and questioned writings was in the “habit of giving a peculiar sign when making insertion of certain words”. [9] This peculiar caret was described by him as having a “very high identifying value”. The following combo of Bose’s and Bhagwanji’s handwritings will drive home the point. On left is a specimen of Bose's writing in 1937 and on right a 1984 scribble by Bhagwanji.
“What about reports of two other experts the commission approached?”
The other two reports were given by “government” experts. They did not have the stature and experience of B Lal Kapoor and their subsequent conduct also did not inspire too much confidence in their findings.
One report was given by Dr SK Mandal, senior scientific officer at the Forensic Science Laboratory, Kolkata. Take a look at his report and you know that it is fraudulent. While giving a report, a handwriting expert is supposed to state reasons for drawing the conclusions. But Mandal’s report has zilch. It simply says the writings are of two different persons. The other one was signed by Amar Singh, Government Examiner of Questioned Documents, and ML Sharma, Deputy Government Examiner of Questioned Documents. “We have carefully and thoroughly examined the original documents of this case in all aspect of handwriting identification and detection of forgery, with the scientific aids in the Government of India laboratory at Shimla,” they stated while explaining the reason for opinion. They admitted that Bhagwanji’s writings “do not show any sign of imitation or forgery in them”.
This was the only common ground between them and B Lal. In his report to the Hindustan Times, he had observed that Bhagwanji tried to conceal his identity by overwriting the strokes and writing in the capitals.
B Lal nevertheless emphasized that
it is not possible for a writer to change his writing habit completely. Even in an effort to hide his identity, the writer is not able to leave his individual characteristics and other peculiarities found in his handwriting. There is such a faithful reproduction of some peculiarities that even a gap of time to the extents of decades can not hide them.
The expert’s conclusion on this point was that he found “no evidence…that the questioned writing has been made by a writer other than Shri Subhas Chandra Bose by imitating/copying the writing of Shri Subhas Chandra Bose”. But if you believe the Government of India Laboratory report, the resemblance was merely cosmetic.
Both the handwritings in their pictorial appearance appear to bear a marked resemblance to each other at the first instance, which is due to similar style and class of writing. However, the analysis of the structures of the letters, the study of the “master pattern” of the letters, in words as well as range of variations on close observation shows that the two writings are quite distinctive and different in their origin and are written by two different authors. [10]
The report gave some details and at the end showcased a “juxtaposition chart” highlighting the differences between the two handwritings. The chart had eight examples, five for English and three for Bangla, comparing both sets of writings and demonstrating the differences in 10 alphabets in all.
That is not very impressive. B Lal’s report was supported by 460 large size photographs accounting for each and every alphabetical letter appearing in the handwriting samples given to him. He also dwelt at length on the issue of “natural variation” in handwriting.
Every genuine writing has got natural variation since the human hand is not an exact reproducing machine and it is very important to consider this natural variation for a correct conclusion regarding authorship of a writing. If natural variations are taken as differences then there would be error in the identification. [11]
His finding was that Bhagwanji’s handwriting showed “natural variations which are additional symptoms of genuineness and there exists significant similarities”.
That the central government experts were not confident of their report became clear to the commission staffers when they chose to ignore the commission’s summons to appear before it in New Delhi on the same day when their former boss B Lal Kapoor was going to be examined. Amar Singh never turned up before the commission. ML Sharma went all the way to Kolkata from his office in Shimla to make the Government’s case. As Mandal was being examined, Sharma sneaked into the room and noted all the questions that he was also going to face. It was later argued by deponent Prof Nandalal Chakravarty before the commission that “armed with the prior knowledge of the questions he was going to face”, Sharma started answering questions even before they were put to him.
The governmet experts made contradictory statements during their examination. Mandal was asked by Justice Mukherjee: “Do you agree that to study the writing habits of the author of a document the shape of punctuation marks, their position and frequency, the choice of a peculiar punctuation sign, the mark of a caret, underscoring and bracketing need to be considered?” He said, “Yes”. Then he was asked: “Did you consider all those factors before arriving at your conclusion and have those factors been reflected in your report?” He now responded: “I considered all the above factors but none of those factors have been reflected in my report.” What would you say to that?
ML Sharma too was asked by Prof Chakravarty: “Do you agree that a matured writer can have a habit of using a peculiar or unique sign or insertion in a line, which is rare?” He replied: “Yes, it may have.” Later he was asked: “Do you agree that such a sign has a very high identifying value in examining a writing?”
Knowing the implication of answering in affirmative, Sharma now said: “I do not agree.” At the end of the examination he could not conceal the truth. “Do you agree that such a sign falls within the category of individual characteristics?” Answer: “Yes”. “Do you agree that individual characteristics of a handwriting are the most important factors to determine the authorship of a document?” Answer: “Yes”.
All the government experts were given a dressing down by Justice Mukherjee for their strange behaviour. Had it not been for other factors, he would have thrown out their reports as unreliable.
“Other factors as in negative DNA report? Now we are talking! A DNA test cannot be wrong. Right?”
The process of DNA testing is scientific and beyond reproach. But humans can err, or create frauds. There have been reports of the fudging of forensic tests even in the developed nations, what to speak of rampantly corrupt third world countries. The Indian forensic labs are not like those in the US or Europe that one will take their word as final on politically sensitive issues. The credibility of DNA testing process in India has often been called into question over matters that are nowhere as politically volatile as the Bose case.
For instance, in 2003 three police officers and two doctors were found guilty of “fudging the DNA samples of five innocent civilians” killed over the Chattisinghpora massacre of 2000 in J&K. [12] A September 2010 report in Hyderabad journal reported how a scientist at the Forensic Science Laboratory in the city was caught red-handed while accepting bribe from a suspect in a rape case. The scientist said: “The police usually tamper with DNA reports to help mighty culprits to go scot-free.” [13] Two unimpeachable authorities have also recently testified that we have little to tom-tom about our state-controlled forensic labs. A secret April 2006 US government record leaked by Wikileaks said: “Forensics is weak in India—only two DNA labs service the entire country.” [14] Our Government is very much aware of that. On 1 February 2010 Home Minister P Chidambaram admitted that the “state of forensic science as well as the state of the Central and State Forensic Science Laboratories ‘leave much to be desired’”. [15]
“Which lab carried out the DNA tests in the Bhagwanji case?”
Two different DNA tests were performed on some teeth found in the house Bhagwanji last stayed and, therefore, presumed to be his. The report of the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD) in Hyderabad was signed by a fairly junior t
echnical officer. The name of the senior scientist-incharge was not mentioned anywhere in it. This report dated 23 June 2003 said that two out of seven teeth made available to them were “subjected to DNA isolation, and DNA fingerprinting profiles were prepared”. The same were then matched with the DNA obtained from blood samples given by Bose’s relatives.
This report was inconclusive as the teeth “did not yield DNA suitable for complete analysis”. [16] For inexplicable reasons, the remaining five teeth were not used for meeting desired concentration of DNA. My suspicions were further raised when a source in the commission told me that an impression was given to them initially that the DNA had in fact matched. Thereafter, I showed a copy of the CDFD report to a DNA expert, who concluded that “the test was politically conjugated to truncate its normal inference” for reasons beyond his comprehension.
First, the DNA isolated from the two teeth would have done the job convincingly as there are other ways to attain higher and purified yield of DNA extraction. However, even if it is taken that the yield of DNA was not sufficient for the micro-satellite based fingerprinting, the question remains what prohibited them from using all the teeth samples?
The problem could have been properly addressed if they had used mitochondrial DNA-based assay. Although the protocol looks very much the authenticated one, from the blurred gel picture in the photocopy of the report shown to me, and from the results, one simply cannot draw a negative conclusion mainly because the test wasn’t carried out in replicates. On a more ethical ground, such tests are generally not performed by an individual alone without any supervision from the other scientific staffs.
The remaining five teeth were then given to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), Kolkata, whose comprehensive report signed by its director on 11 June 2004—when Congress had returned to power—concluded that “the individual-source of the teeth does not belong to either maternal or paternal DNA lineage of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose”. [17] The credibility of this report was marred by the leak of its apparently “premeditated” finding to Bangla newspaper Anandabazar Patrika which has been for the last few years supportive of the Taipei death story.