Indian Opposition Leader Denies Snooping on Independence Hero’s Family

A leader of India's Indian National Congress party denied having snooped on family members of a World War II independence hero.

NEW DELHI (Sputnik) — A leader of India's main opposition party, Indian National Congress, denied having snooped on family members of a World War II independence hero, in an interview with Sputnik on Monday.

"Congress party never ordered the snooping of the family members of Subhash Chandra Bose," the party's Secretary General Digvijay Singh told Sputnik in an exclusive interview.

Singh commented on an allegation by the country's ruling People's Party (BJP) that Congress spied on the close relatives of Subhash Chandra Bose, an Indian freedom fighter and founder of a Japan-backed anticolonial militia who fought against the British during World War II.

Bose disappeared at the end of the war, in 1945, allegedly at the request of India's former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of the Congress Party, which governed the country for two decades.

In return, Singh hit back at BJP, calling on the government of current Prime Minister Narendra Modi to probe the "mysterious" death of Pandit Deendayal Uphadhaya, who was at the helm of BJP's forerunner party. He was assassinated while travelling by train in 1968.

Mystery surrounds the fates of both men, who played significant roles in the country's independence movement. India was declared an independent nation in 1947 by the British parliament after it passed an act that also split British India into India and Pakistan.