The Centre on Wednesday said Russia has conveyed that no documents had been found in the country’s archives on Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, PTI reported. The Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan told the Lok Sabha that several requests had been made by India since 2014 to seek information on the leader.

Muraleedharan said India had sought information on whether Bose was in Russia any time before or after August 1945 and whether he had fled to Russia during the same time as reported by a few researchers. “In its response, the Russian government has conveyed that they were unable to find any documents in the Russian archives pertaining to Netaji and even after additional investigations made based on request from the Indian side, they could not find any documents giving more information on the subject,” the minister said.

Bharatiya Janata Party member Chandra Kumar Bose, the grand-nephew of Subhash Chandra Bose, said that the matter needed a “holistic approach”. “Just by examining whether certain documents are available with Russian archives won’t solve problem,” ANI quoted him as saying. “In 2016 Sushma ji [Sushma Swaraj] had written to Japan and it had stated that they have five files pertaining to Netaji. Three classified files are still remaining with Japanese authorities. Japan knows what happened to Subhash Chandra Bose after 18 August 1945.”

Subhash Chandra Bose had reportedly died in a Japanese bomber jet crash in Taiwan on August 18, 1945, while travelling to Tokyo. The Justice Mukherjee Commission was formed in 1999 to investigate the death of the leader. Following a seven-year-long inquiry, the panel had concluded that the leader had not died in the crash.

In September 2015, the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government had declassified 64 secret files on Subhash Chandra Bose. Last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that the secret files on the leader would be completely declassified and the procedure had begun from January 23 this year.