PMO has a secret report on Lal Bahadur Shastri’s death but won’t release it

The Government of India seems to have a knack for fermenting unwarranted mysteries. Nearly forty-five years after Lal Bahadur Shastri passed away in the erstwhile USSR, the Prime Minister’s Office has refused to declassify a report throwing light on how its former boss died. If that’s not enough, the Ministry of External Affairs office on the Raisina Hill has no record sent by the Soviets offering details about the circumstances leading to the controversial death of a most eminent guest.

An RTI application seeking details about the former Prime Minister’s death in Tashkent way back in 1966 has for the first time revealed that the PMO is holding one classified record on the issue and that it cannot be declassified under the clause 8(I)(a) of the RTI act. The clause essentially lets the government withhold information/records whose release could harm foreign relations, cause disruption in the country, lead to incitement of an offence, etc.

Mercifully, no record connected to Lal Bahadur Shastri’s death has been destroyed by the PMO or gone missing, as was the case with certain records related to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s reported death.

Our straight and simple queries were submitted to the PMO, which handled the two and forwarded the rest to the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary.

The controversy

There are two conflicting views on Lal Bahadur Shastri’s sudden death at 1:32 am Tashkent time at a Soviet government villa. The official version is that it was due to a heart attack. It has been vouched for by his eldest son and senior Congress leader Anil Shastri. Shastriji had a history of heart ailment. In fact, he nearly died following a heart attack in 1959.

The major proponent of the conspiracy theory were/are from the family itself. Anil’s mother Lalita Shastri was rather vocal that she did not think that her husband died a natural death. She suspected that the water in his thermos flask kept at his bedside had been spiked. Her younger son Sunil Shastri still holds that his father’s death was a mystery and has been raising demands for an inquiry to clear doubts.

How Shastri died

At the week-long, hectic Indian-Pakistan summit at Tashkent, Lal Bahadur Shastri reportedly showed no sign of illness. Following the signing of the agreement at 4pm and a public reception at 8pm on 10 January 1966, he reached the villa at 10pm. Later, he had a light meal prepared by Mohammed Jan, the personal cook of T N Kaul, the Indian Ambassador in Moscow, and Russian butler Akhmed Sattarov. At about 11.30pm, Shastri had a glass of milk. When his personal staff took leave of him, he was all fine.

But at 1:25am, Shastri was awakened by a severe coughing fit. He ran from his room yelling “Doctor, doctor.” His personal doctor R N Chugh and personal staff came to his aid. Shastri was unable to speak and pointed to a flask kept nearby. A staffer brought some water from it, which the Prime Minister sipped a bit.

Shortly afterwards, Shastri became unconscious. Dr Chugh tried to revive him with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and an injection. But it was no use.

At 4am, Sattarov was arrested on suspicion of poisoning Shastri. He was later absolved of the charges.

Source: End The Secrecy