The words of the greatest Indian leader have been reinterpreted by scholars as an attempt to prove his innocence, a claim that was made by a former aide to the late prime minister who has long maintained that Gandhi was a criminal and a murderer.
“There is a huge amount of work to be done on the issue of the assassination,” said the retired army officer and former aide, who is now the president of the Institute for Social Sciences in Bangalore.
The retired officer was referring to the long-running debate over the authenticity of the assassin’s death certificate and the fact that his identity has never been confirmed by India’s security agencies.
“In my opinion, if he was a serial killer, then he has to be investigated,” the retired officer told The Hindu.
The dispute has resurfaced following the release of a new batch of documents in July that purport to show the role played by the late Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in the assassination of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1974.
The documents, which were leaked by the whistleblower Rajiv Mehta, have prompted questions in India about whether the former prime minister and her team deliberately covered up the assassination to ensure her death.
Gandhi was killed in the city of Kolkata by a bullet to the head in the midst of a protest against his policies.
His body was found in the sea five days later.
Gandi’s body has been in the possession of her grandson, who has refused to hand it over.
The Supreme Court has ordered the government to hand over the body to the family.
But in a recent interview with The Hindu, the retired soldier said the documents released by the government and Mehtas “give us a different view”.
The former army officer said that he was contacted by Mehtaa, a retired Indian army officer who has been serving as an independent scholar of the former Prime Minister, who wanted to know whether the documents were authentic.
Gandeep Singh, who had been handling the documents for Mehtya, sent him a reply that was titled “It has been discussed that a group of people are circulating the documents.
Do you have any other information?”.
Gandhas body was recovered from the sea in Kolkatta on August 26, 1974.
The former prime Minister’s body was discovered in the same spot three days later, on August 30, 1974, a day after he was assassinated.
It was the first time that the former Indian Prime Ministers name was linked to the assassination.
The former Indian prime minister was also killed in a police firing in Delhi in 1984.