OTTAWA/NEW DELHI, 18 March 2005 — Celebrations erupted yesterday in the hometown of one of the two Sikhs acquitted by a Canadian court in the bombing of an Indian jet that claimed 329 lives, but relatives of the victims demanded a new probe into the attack 20 years ago.
Indian-born Ajaib Singh Bagri and Ripudaman Singh Malik saw charges against them dismissed Wednesday when Justice Ian Bruce Josephson ruled the evidence in the near two-year trial had fallen “markedly short” of the standard required to convict the men.
The pair were cleared of eight charges each of murder and conspiracy in the bombing of the Air India plane and a blast less than an hour earlier in Tokyo that killed two baggage handlers.
Some 70 friends and relatives in the court burst into sobs following the verdict but back home in India the reaction was mixed.
Bagri’s village in the Punjab exploded in celebration at his acquittal, witnesses said, as drummers played the traditional Bhangra musical beats reserved for auspicious events.
“As soon as the news of Bagri’s acquittal spread, neighbors with sweets poured into our home,” Tirath Singh, the acquitted man’s 23-year-old nephew, said in Bagri’s village of Chak Kalan.
“We last saw Bagri in 1999 and now we expect him to return very soon,” he said as the celebrations started in the farming village. Bagri’s aunt Surinder Kaur was overjoyed. “We began dancing on our rooftop when the verdict came and now our child will return home,” Kaur said.
Indian relatives of the victims, meanwhile, demanded a fresh probe, saying the Canadian legal system had let them down. “If the two accused who were narrowed down after a lot of investigation are not the culprits, then who is it?” asked film actor Vijayendra Ghatge whose sister Sangeeta was killed in the bombing.
She was a hostess onboard Air India Flight 182 when it was blown up on June 23, 1985. “The problem is that the world has become numb to terrorism ... whether it is the plane bombing which we as family members suffered or the Sept. 11 attacks or attacks on our Parliament.”
“Initially after the verdict I was disappointed, but now we relatives of the victims feel that justice needs to be done and there should be further, deep investigation,” Ghatge said.
Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan said she could “not see any benefit” in calling a public inquiry, after relatives of victims present in the Vancouver court expressed fury after the verdict.
For some relatives in India, the verdict came too late to matter. “It’s been 20 years now and the world had forgotten the bombing,” said Muktaben Bhat, 70-year-old mother of Bombay businessman and theater actor Parag Bhat who was killed along with his wife Chand and six-month-old son Siddhant.
“The verdict has come too late, but I am shocked as it is unfair,” she said.
Her daughter Manjiri was in court when the verdict was delivered. “There were small instances and a chain of events that linked the two accused to the crime. I am shocked and hurt as to how they can be let off,” said Bhat.
The widow of S.S. Binder, the co-pilot of Flight 182, also felt the verdict was delivered too late. “Too much time has passed since the crash,” Amarjit Bhinder said.
In terms of numbers killed, the 1985 attack was the world’s worst militant air attack prior to Sept. 11, 2001. The relatives had waited two decades for the verdict, and many had traveled to Canada from India and the United States hoping for convictions and closure.
Canada spent $100 million over two decades to punish those responsible for downing an Air-India flight but the end result saw the two persons accused of the conspiracy being acquitted.
Canada’s opposition leader Stephen Harper urged the provincial government of British Columbia to go into appeal against the Vancouver court verdict.
“Today we have lost our families all over again, this time to the Canadian justice system,” said Sanja Lazar, of Bombay, whose entire family died in the crash.
“I’m totally hollow, feeling anger and sorrow like so many other families. I traveled halfway across the earth to witness the Canadian justice system, only to find no justice.”
In an emotional news conference following the verdict in Vancouver, shocked members of several families decried what they said was Ottawa’s insensitivity to their plight.
“They owe it to us. They owe it to the 329 victims of this crime,” said Eddie Madon, of North Vancouver, who lost his father on Flight 182.
“There will be, tragically, some questions that may very well not be answered, just as we know out of 9/11 there are questions that will never be answered, as hard as we look,” McLellan said.
Several family members blasted McLellan. “I am totally appalled that the deputy prime minister would say something like that,” said Lata Pada, who lost her husband and two daughters on Flight 182.
Other victims’ relatives said the inquiry could help prevent future terrorist attacks.
The families have long complained that it took police until late 2000 to file charges in the case. And, despite repeated claims they knew of at least six suspects, police were able to bring only Malik and Bagri to trial.
A third man charged in the crime pleaded guilty in 2003 to a reduced charge. Police blamed what they said was an unwillingness of members of Canada’s Sikh community to cooperate. At least one potential trial witness, Tara Singh Hayer, was murdered before Malik and Bagri were arrested.
The killers of Hayer, a prominent Indo-Canadian newspaper publisher, have never been caught. Bagri had also been charged with attempting to kill Hayer, but that charge was also dropped before it went to trial.
