Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose family photos found in Gumnami Baba's trove

LUCKNOW: The mystery surrounding Gumnami Baba, who many believe was Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose living incognito in UP's Faizabad, turned deeper on Tuesday with the recovery of old photographs of the Bose family from the district's treasury.

Apart from a family portrait, there's a photograph of Netaji's parents Jankinath and Prabhawati Bose in the inventory -their identities confirmed by Shakti Singh, the owner of Ram Bhawan, where Gumnami Baba spent the final three years of his life from 1982 to '85.

“The family photograph of the Bose family shows 22 members besides his parents,“ said Singh, who is also a special invitee to the committee formed by the Faizabad administration for the retrieval and cross-verification of Gumnami Baba's artefacts.

Singh said Lalita Bose, the daughter of Netaji's brother Suresh, had visited Ram Bhawan in Faizabad on February 4, 1986. “She identified the people in the photographs when these were at Ram Bhawan,“ he added, saying the descrip tion Lalita provided is part of the inventory.

Apart from this, a number of telegrams sent to Gumnami Baba by Azad Hind Fauj veterans Pabitra Mohan Roy (senior officer of INA's intelligence wing) and Sunil Kant Gupta on the occasions of Durga Puja and January 23 (Netaji's birthday) have also been found.

“Gumnami Baba had a habit of making indirect ref erences to people. He referred to Sunil Kant Gupta as Sukriti. Some letters mentioning the sender's name as Mukul and Tripti were also found,“ Singh told TOI.

Singh heads the SC Bose Singh heads the SC Bose Rashtriya Vichar Kendra in Faizabad. He said the documents retrieved from Ram Bhawan indicate that the Baba was not just another sage, but an “extraordinary human being."