The Why Axis
- The PMO turned down an RTI plea in 2009 seeking clarity on Shastri’s death citing “security, integrity and sovereignty of the country”
- Shastri’s family is willing to concede the late PM died of a heart attack, but wants 1966 correspondence between MEA and Indian embassy in Moscow to be declassified
- Both Shastri’s doctor and personal assistant were hit by moving vehicles as they were proceeding to inquiry committee hearings in 1977. R.N. Chugh dies, Ram Nath loses memory.
- All records of the post-emergency Raj Narain inquiry committee report have vanished; there is not a trace even in Parliament’s exalted library.
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The fatal poisoning of a prime minister, a cover-up at the highest levels, stoic silence when questions were asked, conspiracy theories involving international players and national figures, mysterious accidents that claimed the lives of witnesses who could...