M A I N   N E W S

Verdict stuns Kanishka victims’ kin
Ela Dutt

Vancouver (Canada), March 17
Terming it a “betrayal”, distraught relatives of some of the 329 passengers killed in the 1985 Air-India Kanishka bombing said they would be demanding a federal inquiry into the acquittal of the two accused Indo-Canadians by a court here.

“The government needs to be held accountable for this betrayal...” said Lata Pada, a noted dancer and choreographer in Greater Toronto, who lost her husband and two children, and was present when the verdict was delivered yesterday.

Canadian Judge Ian Bruce Josephson declared Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Babri innocent in a historic judgment that came 20 years after the disaster.

“The fact remains that our government systems failed and no one has been held accountable for that,” Sushil Gupta, son of one of those killed, said on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). He along with others is demanding a federal inquiry into the whole process.

The British Columbia Attorney-General said his office would be looking closely at the 600-page verdict and decide whether an appeal would be filed based on that assessment.

Pronouncing the verdict, Judge Josephson called the evidence presented by the witnesses as inconsistent and accused Canadian security agencies of gross negligence in investigations into the 1985 bombing of Air-India Flight 182 over Ireland that killed 329 people, and two baggage handlers killed in Narita Airport, Japan.

Relatives of the victims gathered in the heavily fortified British Columbia Supreme Court gave out a gasp of disbelief as the “innocent” verdict was read out.

Ripudaman Singh Malik, a Vancouver businessman, and Ajaib Singh Babri, a millworker and religious activist, have been standing trial for two years and the surprising verdict is considered stunning with 115 witnesses testifying over these years.

Hundreds of journalists gathered from across the world to hear the verdict in what has been called the most expensive trial in Canadian history costing more than $100 million and one that has thrown up questions about the credibility of this country’s security agencies and processes, including issues of inbuilt racism.

Most of the 329 victims were Indo-Canadians, plus the two baggage handlers who were killed at Narita Airport in Japan when a bomb was set off as they were transferring luggage.

The Judge took some 90 minutes to read out the executive summary of the verdict rather than just deliver the bare bones.

The verdict based on circumstantial evidence in a 20-year trial has thrown up questions about the Canadian security services like the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the highly esteemed Royal Canadian Mounted Police or the RCMP.

Some of the critical circumstantial evidence was given by the alleged girlfriend of Ripudaman Malik, who is now under the witness protection plan. The Judge did not put store on her testimony and questioning and he characterised the witnesses’ testimony as “inconsistent” and said what the CSIS had done was “unacceptable”.

Kim Bolan, longtime journalist for the Vancouver Sun, who covered the bombing story from its inception and has followed families as they recovered from the tragedy, told the CBC that she also came to the court looking for justice just like the families.

She had written about Malik even before he was held for the crimes, relating to his businesses, and had received death threats several times. “As a result I felt very strongly that I had to continue. ... So I wanted to be there every day to show that I was not intimidated.” One journalist was killed while reporting.

“Today, 20 years later, we have lost our families all over again,” said another family member of a victim.

Reports of the CSIS destroying reams of taped evidence and other bungles, as well as allegations of a power struggle between the RCMP and the CSIS have surfaced over the years, further reducing the credibility of the process of prosecuting those accused.

Malik and Bagri stood accused of conspiracy and mass murder, of placing two bombs in two planes, one of them bound for Mumbai from Vancouver via Toronto, Montreal and London. The act was considered a revenge for the storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar by the Indian security forces.

Another accused, Inderjit Singh Reyat, an electrician, earlier pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was handed a five-year jail term on top of the 10 years he was already serving given on charges of manslaughter and explosives charges on the Narita airport bomb explosion.

Bagri’s daughter read out a statement on behalf of her father in which he said he acknowledged that he was an activist back in 1985 but that he had nothing to do with the Air-India bombing. Malik’s family released a statement saying that the judge had handed down a correct decision and that the Malik family sympathises with the victims’ families. — IANS

Celebration in Bagri’s village
Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, March 17
In contrast to relatives of those killed in the 1985 Air-India bombing who are crestfallen with the acquittal of the two main accused, there was a mood of jubiliation in the ancestral village of one of the undertrials, Ajaib Singh Bagri.

“As soon as the news of Bagri’s acquittal spread, all villagers along with sweets started coming to our house to congratulate us,” 23-year-old Tirath Singh, nephew of Bagri, told PTI in Chak Kalan village.

“As the judgement was scheduled to be pronounced yesterday, the whole family was busy in praying in the local gurudwara and finally the news reached us through a news channel past midnight,” he said. “I knew from the very beginning that my uncle is innocent. At last, the truth prevailed upon, thanks to god.”

“We have last seen Bagri in 1999. Now we expect that very soon he will be in his village to meet his parents,” he said, adding that at present the family was waiting for a call from him to listen to his voice.

A British Colombia Supreme Court judge yesterday found both millionaire businessmen Ripudaman Singh Malik and Kamloops mill worker Bagri not guilty in the Air-India bombing which killed all 329 persons on board off the Irish Coast in 1985.

India expresses outrage

New Delhi, March 17
India today voiced its anguish at the acquittal of the two Sikh activists accused in the 1985 Kanishka bombing case by a Canadian court yesterday.

“We share the sense of outrage among the relatives and friends of those who lost their lives in the attack that after almost two decades the culprits have not been brought to account,’’ an External Affairs Ministry spokesman said here. — UNI