Dec 12: Interim reports of the Air India bombing inquiry published on Tuesday for the first time admitted the sufferings faced by the victim’s families and officially documented the trauma of the victims by the Canadian government and castigated the government for its step-behaviour against the victim’s families and found fault with the official response to the terror tragedy in 1985.
The Air India flight named, Kanishka was bombed down near Irish coast on June 23, 1985 killing all 329 people on board. The Sikh militant was allegedly involved in the incident planted bomb in one of its luggage.
Plot mastermind Talwinder Singh Parmar, who had fled to India was shot down by the police in an encounter in 1992.The criminall trial of the two other suspects- Ripduman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri- was ended in fiasco for the victim’s families and both were released in March 2005 for lack of evidence.
The victim’s families and Indo-Canadian politicians led demand for a public enquiry to the then Liberal Party government against the acquittal of the accused. But the government refused to such demand.
It was only after the power acquired by the Conservative Party in January 2006, an inquiry commission was appointed to investigate into the matter under former Supreme Court chief justice John Major in May 2006.
The public inquiry opened last year after three week long testimony of the victim’s families.
Mr. John Major exclaimed over the previous government response to the victims’ relatives after the crisis by pointed out that how the government had deputed only three extra staff at the Foreign Affairs Department to handle the visitors and deputed only three support staff and seven diplomats at the crash site in Ireland to help them identify and repatriate the bodies of their relatives.
The interim report pointed out the weakness of the diplomats assigned for the help mission reveals they lacked practical training for the task. Reports further clarified that although their intention was good but they were unprepared and ill-equipped for the task what was assigned to them.
The report not only highlighting the weakness and misconduct carried out by the previous government but, simultaneously it also highlights the praiseworthy work made by the families of the Air India victims.
In a section entitled “Overcoming grief to create a better world,” John Major said that despite faces suffering by the government, these people worked tremendously by turning their loss into positive contribution to society and focusing on charity work. Taking into account that they had lost their loved ones these people got strength and determination to pursue a path of good works and charities.
No recommendations made in the 211-page document, released on Tuesday as Major continues to hear testimony in the final days of the judicial inquiry.
Soon after the 1985 bombings of the Kanishka, the Indian government had instituted an inquiry commission under Justice B N Kirpal to investigate into the matter and find out the truth behind the bombing of the plane that whether the plane had crashed due to an explosion, a machine failure or a man made error. It had arrived at a conclusion denying categorically any other mistake that the sole reason of the explosion was the’ bomb’ which had planted in Canada. It was established by the CBI enquiry that the bombing was the handiwork of Babbarkhalsa International (BKI), a terrorist outfit in Punjab and mastermind was Talwinder Singh Parmar.
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