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A tragedy that won't go away

Eugene Correia in Toronto

The agony of the families of the 329 victims, mostly Canadians of Indian origin, continues 15 years after Air India Flight 182 was blown out of the sky over Ireland by a suspected bomb.

Things haven't been helped by recent disclosure that an agent of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service destroyed key audio tapes. The unidentified officer said he didn't want the tapes to go into the hands of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which is in charge of the ongoing investigation. He said he did it because of the turf war going on between the CSIS and the RCMP and that the police would not be able to protect his sources.

The CSIS, however, has denied that any tapes have been destroyed. The RCMP Air-India Task Force has at least 18 members working on the case that has cost the government more than $ 40 million, the longest and the costliest ever in Canadian history.

For the last few months, the RCMP has said they are closing to laying charges against key suspects, including Inderjit Singh Rewat, who is in jail for the Narita bombing case that killed two baggage handles. Police say the Narita case is indirectly tied with the Air India Bombing case. In fact, they even put out an advertisement calling for expert lawyers from the US to handle the case when it reaches the court.

But despite the RCMP's assurances, no charges have been made till today, the 15th anniversary of one of the most serious cases in aviation history. Sources say that at least there are five key suspects, one of whom, Talwinder Singh Parmar of Toronto, was killed in an alleged encounter with the Indian police during his visit to Punjab in 1992.

Reyat probably holds the answer to the Air India puzzle, but he maintains his ignorance. Efforts to turn him into a prosecution witness have failed and he has denied having anything to do with the bombing. After repeated denials for his application for parole, sources say that another application was heard recently. The result isn't out yet.

A member of the Babbar Khalsa, Reyat will complete his 10-year sentence early next year. He was arrested in England and brought to Canada to face trial. Vancouver police also charged his wife for fraud because she collected welfare money when working. She pleaded guilty and was ordered to pay just $ 10,000 out of the $ 109,000 she reported collected between 1991 and 1998. She spent at least $ 58,000 in paying legal bills for her husband.

John Nunziata, an independent MP now, made a demand for a public inquiry into the case but the government has been reluctant to oblige. The then Liberal MP, who represents one of the ridings in the Greater Toronto Area, felt that only an judicial inquiry would set to rest the fears and apprehensions of the victims' families.

There is a feeling in many quarters, including the families of the victims, that if the victims were mostly "white" Canadians the government wouldn't hesitate to set up a judicial inquiry. The charge that that government has shown a great deal of interest, at least in the early stages, in solving the case has also been laid by the husband-and-wife team of writers, Clark Blaise and Bharati Mukherjee, in their book, The Sorrow and the Terror: The Haunting Legacy of the Air India Tragedy. Both are Canadians, and they said they wrote the book as "citizens bearing witness".

It is almost certain now that a bomb was the cause of the plane going down. The Kirpal Commission, set up by the Indian government, said in its reported dated February 26, 1986, that "there had been a detonation of an explosive device on the Kanishka aircraft," a view supported by the Canadian Aviation Safety Board.

Reporter for The Vancouver Sun, Salim Jiva, has provided the background for the case in his book, The Death of Flight 182. And he served as adviser to the recently shown hour-length documentary, Legacy of Terror -- The Bombing of Air-India, which told the story of two sisters, Shyamala Jean and Kirtika Nicola Laurence, then 18 and 16 of age, both accomplished Bharat Natyam dancers, who died in the crash. He also appeared on camera to provide comments on the case.

Featuring on the video is also Lata Pada, who lost her family members, and who is in Cork, Ireland, with a group of dancers from Toronto, to perform in memory of those who perished on that fateful day of June 23, 1985.

On the 15th anniversary of the tragedy, Uma Parameswaran, a professor of English at the University of Winnipeg, Manitoba, who is also a poet, playwright and critic, wrote this poem:

On the shores of the Irish Sea

Fifteen years have passed. Fifteen summers,
with the length of fifteen long winters.
I feel for her little fingers
that so trustingly encircle mine
as we wade along the beach,
only to see her floating on spindrift foam
far on the open sea.
On winter nights, snow at my window,
I stretch my legs to entwine his warmth
and feel the empty chill of cold sheets.

Fifteen summers we have met
On the shores of this Irish sea;
victims twice over,
mourning our ever-young dead
with our slowly-aging eyes
and ever-aching hearts.

EARLIER FEATURES/REPORTS:
A requiem for the dead
Arrests Promised In Air-India Blast Case
Kanishka Bombers Linked with Sikh Editor's Murder, Says Son
Probe Continues Into Alleged Welfare Fraud By A-I Bomber Suspect's Wife

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