India still awaits answers on death of Lal Bahadur Shastri, says Anuj Dhar

MANGALURU: The death of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri at Tashkent on January 11, 1966 still has left a lot of unanswered questions, which the government needs to answer, noted journalist turned author Anuj Dhar. “Experts that I spoke to and who agreed to come on record have only confirmed the suspicion that embalming of late PMs body was done not with the intention to preserve the body, but to hide facts,” he said.
Releasing his book Your 'Prime Minister Is Dead' based on research carried out in to the death of Shastri post the signing of the Tashkent Pact, at Mangaluru Lit Fest on Saturday, Anuj said Soviet doctors in the USSR era were experts in embalming body.“Experts such as Dr Sayan Biswas I interviewed have explained that embalming raised more questions than it answered. He also questioned reason why no post-mortem was done,” Anuj said.
Citing Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) declassified report of 1952 that spoke about Soviet procedure regarding death in Stalin era, Anuj said while there may not have been much value for human life then, the Soviets were very thorough in following up on exact cause of death of a person. Even though the USSR government offered to perform a post-mortem, then Indian government refused it for reasons best known to powers that be, he said.
Lack of eye-witness statements of people with Shastri on that fateful day, failure to follow up on media reports of cooks including a Indian Mohammad Jan being interrogated by KGB for their suspected involvement in poisoning of Shastri were never followed by India, he said. Even the queries raised by Lalita Shastri, widow of late PM to Dharmayug magazine was not answered by the authorities, he said adding India is still awaiting answers.