“No post-mortem was conducted,” Nayar said when asked whether any such medical procedure was undertaken in the USSR following Shastri’s demise in Tashkent, where he had gone to meet Pakistani President Mohammad Ayub Khan in 1966.
On January 11, 1966, a day after signing the Tashkent declaration, Shastri died under mysterious circumstances.
Asked if it was a mistake on part of the government not to have conducted a post-mortem as there were several conspiracy theories circulating, Nayar said: “I never thought of it (post-mortem) then. We were shown the body and it was brought back in a plane. But, now to think of it, the post-mortem could have been conducted.”
The PMO had answered only two questions of an RTI application, saying it had only one classified document pertaining to the death which is exempted from disclosure under the RTI Act.
Nayar said the government should make the document public than keeping it under wraps.
The Delhi Police in their reply to the RTI application said they did not have any record pertaining to Shastri’s death.
The Central Public Information Officer of the Delhi Police in his reply dated July 29 said, “no such record related to the death of former prime minister of India Lal Bahadur Shastri is available in this district... Hence the requisite information pertaining to New Delhi district may please be treated as nil.”
