File picture of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose reading out the Proclamation of the Provincial Government of Azad Hind Fauj

Guwahati, Jan. 23: A priceless slice of INA history is being dug out at a remote hamlet in Sapekhati, near Sonari town in Sivasagar district of Assam.

The object that has excited researchers is a Japanese Zero fighter plane of World War II vintage, one that was piloted by an Assamese INA soldier all the way from Singapore.

Debabrata Sharma, head of the department of English at Jorhat College and a researcher on Assam?s contribution to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose?s campaign against the British, told The Telegraph over phone that the plane was being retrieved from the very pond where INA soldier Boparam Dowerah hid it decades ago.

?We have found parts of the plane. Hopefully, we will retrieve the entire body in a day or two.?

Dowerah, alias Bombeswar Phukan, was forced to land the plane at Number 2 Kathiakhunda village after it ran out of fuel. ?We are not sure where he was going. But he definitely had no plans of landing where he did because he hailed from Amguri,? Sharma said.

Sharma is part of a team that is conducting the research for an NGO called Eklavya, whose objective is to bring to light the unsung bravehearts of the freedom movement.

The findings of his research were revealed at a public meeting in Jorhat on Netaji?s birth anniversary. Two of Dowerah?s three sons were also present at the meeting.

?The plane is clinching evidence of how Assamese freedom fighters contributed to Netaji?s campaign,? Sharma said.

After landing in Kathiakhunda village, Dowerah decided to settle down there. He married a local girl and died at the same village on June 12, 1993, at the age of 92.

?The stories of his war days, which he told his children, were corroborated by another known INA soldier, Sridam Chandra Mahanta, who died in Guwahati a few years ago,? Sharma said.

Dowerah had travelled to Kohima, Imphal, Burma and Singapore as part of the INA. When Netaji found the going tough, he asked his men to surrender to the allied forces in Singapore, but Dowerah refused and instead fled on a Zero.

?We are still trying to tie up the loose ends of the story of Dowerah?s last days in the INA,? Sharma said.

The determined researcher?s search for INA heroes led him to ?discover? another unsung freedom fighter ? Syed Md. Nesim Bell of Nakachari, in Jorhat district.

Sharma said the base of the research was Jyotiprasad Agarwalla?s immortal play Lovita, which revolves around 18 Assamese soldiers of the INA.

According to Sharma, interactions with INA soldiers revealed that Lovita, one of Agarwalla?s immortal creations, was based on the life of a woman from Teok, near Jorhat, and not a figment of the writer-filmmaker?s imagination.

?She was just a teenager at that time. One of the soldiers said he met her on a train from Mariani to Dimapur. She joined the Red Cross in Dimapur, after which she entered the INA fold. She is said to have died fighting near Kohima,? Sharma said.