Was Subhash Chandra Bose with Lal Bahadur Shastri in Tashkent in 1966?

The mystery around Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's death has deepened further.

Researchers trying to piece together the life and death of Netaji have released a photograph which is being hailed as proof that Netaji may not have died in the plane crash in Taihoku in 1945, the Times of India reported.

According to the report, a forensic face-mapping report of the photo by a British expert has suggested that Netaji may have been present at the Indo-Pak peace talks in Tashkent in 1966 - with then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri.

This photograph may help to establish that Netaji did not die in the plane crash in Taihoku in 1945.

The photograph validates a recent claim by Shastri's grandson Siddharth Nath Singh, who revealed that Shastri had met someone who was considered an icon back home - while in the Soviet Union.

According to reports, Singh claimed his father Suman Shastri had told him that Indians were eagerly waiting for this particular icon to return home. He had also indicated that the Indian icon could have been Bose.

The team of researches, according to the TOI report, will now urge Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take up the issue of Netaji's death with Russian President Vladimir Putin during Modi's visit to Moscow later this month.

The Narendra Modi government has begun the process of declassification of the Netaji files. The first batch of 33 files were handed over to the National Archive in October this year. These will be put in the public domain on 23 January 2016 - Netaji Subhash Chandra's birth anniversary.

In September this year, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had released 64 files related to Netaji.