March by Sikh radicals irks Kanishka victims’ kin

Viney Sharma 

Toronto, June 21

It has been a living nightmare for Toronto-based Sonali Mehta for the past 33 years. The trepidation and helplessness of June 23, 1985, is still fresh in her mind when she desperately scouted for information on her missing aunt in Cork, Ireland, on that fateful day of the Kanishka tragedy.

 “Like me, many others were looking for help, the Indian High Commission officials were doing their best. Even the Irish Government had joined forces to trace survivors and help families. But the absence of Canadian officials during those chaotic hours was conspicuous. No one from the government offered any counselling to the families of the victims,” recalls Mehta.  

What irks many like Mehta even more is that a pro-Khalistan group is set to hold an event at a Toronto memorial on the eve of the 33rd anniversary of the tragedy. The “march to mourn the victims of Air India 182” is being organised by the Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar), Canada East unit. This has not gone down well with the Air India 182 Victims Families Association. “This will only stir discordant notes,” observes 

Dr Bal Gupta, chairman of the association, who lost his wife Ramwati Gupta in the tragedy. Pro-Khalistan leader Sukhminder Singh Hansra, however, sees nothing amiss as he plans to hold a candlelight vigil in memory of the air crash victims. “We always wanted the  truth to be out and had demanded a separate  commission. It’s not that we are doing something like this for the first time. This candlelight vigil may be the first but we have  issued statements on peace, harmony and solidarity in the past as well,” says Brampton-based Hansra. On June 23,1985, as many as 329 persons, including 280 Canadians and 86 children, were killed as the India- bound Air India aircraft was blown into pieces mid-air.

“Some gurdwaras in Canada still display posters on the alleged architect of the 1985 Air India bombing — Talwinder Singh Parmar — as a martyr. What would you call it,” asks Sanjay Rampal from Brampton. Parmar was a Canadian citizen wanted for the murder of two policemen in India. Canada had refused to extradite him. He eventually returned to India on his own, where he was killed by the police in 1992. 

For the families of the victims, the pain has been compounded by the sheer callousness of the Canadian authorities all these years. “First, it took Canada some 25 years to accept the 1985 Kanishka tragedy as its own. Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologised and paid respects at a memorial service for the victims at Humber Bay Park in 2010. Now a pro-Khalistan group is going all out to show solidarity with us, at the same time claiming they want to remove the stigma. That’s something not acceptable. I don’t think these groups represent the voice of an entire community,” says Sukhjinder Gill from Calgary.    

The interest in Kanishka victims was renewed after 9/11 as the blood-soaked face of radicalism bared itself in the US. A public inquiry report that came out in 2010 declared June 23 as the national day of remembrance for victims of terrorism. “The post 9/11 remembering was strategic. It was a way of demonstrating Canada’s vulnerability to terror and terrorism. The families feel ignored. They feel they have not been rendered justice by their government, both in their immediate experience after the bombing and in the years after the bombing,” says Dr Chandrima Chakraborty, co-editor of “Remembering Air India:The Art of Public Mourning” in her book.