In the latest set of Netaji files declassified by the Minister of State for Culture, it has been revealed that the Pakistan government did not let two former INA soldiers attend the Third international Netaji Seminar in 1979 – despite repeated invitations from the Indian government, reports The Indian Express.
The Executive Director of Netaji Research Bureau, Dr. Sisir K Bose, said in a letter to the then Foreign Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in May 1978:
We have been trying for the past few years to get a number of important people from Pakistan who can make a positive contribution to the study of our common struggle for Independence. Last year, we attempted to bring Mian Akbar Shah and Colonel Shaukat Malik to participate in our seminar and the two actually left their homes on their way to India. But the government of Pakistan, at the last moment raised objections to their leaving the country.
The two INA men who were invited were Mian Akbar Sha, a close associate of Netaji and Colonel Shaukat Malik, the first man to hoist the tricolour on Indian soil in 1941. After the letters, Bose also sent separate invitations to Shah and Malik inviting them for the conference.
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