Shaheed Bhagat Singh's family was also 'spied on'
Like the kin of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Shaheed Bhagat Singh's sister and other members of the family had also allegedly been under surveillance for years.
Like the kin of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Shaheed Bhagat Singh's sister and other members of the family had also allegedly been under surveillance for years.
Jagmohan Singh, son of Shaheed's sister, claimed here on Sunday that his mother, Mata Amar Kaur, and he had been under watch during the regime of first prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and after. The retired Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) professor, who alleged that his passport application had been withheld for more than a year, said the government should make the declassified surveillance list public and reveal who was keeping an eye on the freedom fighters and their families, and why.
He, however, spared the first Prime Minister the blame, and said other leaders could be doing it for political motives. "I spent my childhood at Dayalpur village in Kapurthala district. In 1961, a godman appeared in the village. He would visit our home frequently and follow me to school. In 1964, when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru died, this man came to my mother and confessed he had been spying on us since 1961 and was guilty about it. He told my mother that Pandit Nehru saw threat to his life from our family," said the professor.
Even after the family had moved to Ludhiana, the spying had continued, he said. "When my mother died, she was cremated with honours. Even after two months of it, people from security agencies would ask me about her," said Shaheed's nephew.
He told HT that Sajjan Singh, father-in-law of his sister, a chief parliamentary secretary, had been implicated in a murder case and put in the Jalandhar jail. "Sajjan Singh was close to (late prime minister) Lal Bahadur Shastri. His arrest was political vendetta," he claimed.