Cause and circumstances of Lal Bahadur Shastri's death denied under RTI
21 Aug, 2012
Second Prime Minister of independent India, Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri died on January 11, 1966 in Tashkent, the then USSR, soon after signing the Tashkent Pact with Pakistan. His death was said to be under suspicious circumstances and his wife had alleged that the death was caused by poisoning.
The government maintained that Shastri had died of heart failure but his family insisted that he was poisoned. His Sunil Shastri has raised doubts about blue spots and cut marks on the abdomen of his father's body after his death. He has asked the government to clear doubts about his father’s death. The then personal doctor of Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri, Dr. RN Chugh, and some Russian doctors had conducted a medical examination though no post mortem was conducted.
Meanwhile, an application was filed by Mr. Anuj Dhar under the Right to Information (RTI) Act demanding the details of Shastri’s death. The application has been rejected by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) claiming that revealing these details could harm India's foreign relations and would violate Parliamentary Privilege.