Kaldeep Naer in his book "Beyond The Lines" write that on the night of January 11, 1966, when we were in Tashkent(USSR) the door of my room was knocked loudly and a Russian lady told me that our PM 's condition was worst. I quickly walked to PM's residence accompanied by an Indian official. There in the corridor Russian prime minister Kosygin was standing, he pointed out with his hand that Shastri was dead. In the dining room the team of Russian doctors was talking to PM's personal doctor R.N.Chugh.
His dead body was lying on a king side bed and it seemed like a black spot on white board. His shoes were on the carpet in arranged manner. However, in the corner on the dressing table a thermos was seen upside down, it seemed that Shastri had tried to open it.
There was a wrapped Indian national flag on the table. I covered the dead body with the flag with the help of Indian officials. Afterwards, I met Shastri's personal secretary Jagan Nath he told me the details of the incident. He told that PM reached to his residence at 10 PM after attending farewell function and his personal servant served the meals prepared by Jan Muhammad cook of the Ain Cole ambassador of India to USSR.
Indian delegation had to leave for Afghanistan next morning so Indian officials were packing their baggage when at 1 am they suddenly saw PM standing in front of them , they remained stunned, PM was not feeling well and in very low voice with difficulty he asked about the doctor and started coughing and was nearly to fall that official took him to the bed, he kept his hand on chest became senseless and then he did not open eyes. Doctors team tried their best to save his life but in vain.
On the death of Indian PM , president of Pakistan Ayub Khan was much grieved and he was really shocked. He reached to PM's residence at 4 am in the morning. Looking towards all of us, he said<' this was the person who sacrificed his life for resolving the differences between Pakistan and India" He added" there was a mental harmony between Shashtri and myself and I am sure that if he were alive Pakistan and India would have successfully solved all the issues". Early in the morning at 4 AM Pakistani Secretary foreign Aziz Ahmad phoned Foreign minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and told him about the death of Shastri. Bhutto was sleeping so he could understand the word "death" only. He asked "which one of the two bloodies died" Readers can understand who he was pointing to? After Tashkent pact a new history of Pakistan began that continues till today, though not in the initial form.
When Indian delegation returned back to New Delhi, next day Lalita Shastri the widow of PM came to meet me and asked why the body of late Shastri was bluish, I told her," when dead body is preserved temporarily as mummy, its color turns bluish". Then she said that his dead body had also signs of cuts. I could say nothing about that because I has not seen the dead body.
However, I got astonished as neither in Tashkent nor in Delhi the dead body had undergone any postmortem. Therefore, the widow of Lal Bahadur Shastri and his relatives thought that there was something wrong at the bottom. With the passage of time, his family got assured that Shastri was killed by poisoning.
On the occasion of Shastri's birth day on October 02, 1970, widow Lalita demanded the government to investigate into the murder of late prime minister. She suspected that the cook Jan Muhammad of T. N Cole had put poison in Late Shastri's meal.
Several senior members of congress also supported the investigation. Kaldeep Naer in his book further writes that during the end of October I asked congress leader Murar Jee Desai about the issue. He said," the issue is being politicized Shastri died of heart attack, his doctors have themselves told me."
However, an extremely secret report about Lal Bahadur Shastri's derath is in the custody of the government. It is so secret that no body except VIP's of the government no bodt can see it. So the the cause of death of late PM of India is still a secret.
But, the history of India shows that those leaders who want to resolve the issue and conflicts with Pakistan are killed or overthrown. It continues till today. If Pakistani leaders could understand or want to understand in the best interest of the nation.
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