September 30 2003
Kamloops Daily News


Eye View

Canadians can tell you what terrorist attack took place on
September 11, 2001.  But they will be hard pressed to tell
you the  terrorist attack of June 23, 1985.  It's like it
never happened.

Here's some hints.  It was the worst terrorist attack in
Canada's history.  It was the most expensive to investigate. 
Relative to our population, as many Canadians died on
June 23 as did Americans on September 11.  

It was thebombing of Air India flight 182.

On that ill-fated day,  Air India flight 182  took off from
Canada to England, destined for Mumbai (Bombay), India.   It
carried mostly Canadian passengers, 82 of them children. 
The total on board was 331.   The flight ended violently in
the early morning of June 23 off the coast of Ireland.

All seemed normal for those passengers who awoke after a
long overnight flight.  What they didn't know was that a
time bomb was ticking in a suitcase stored in the forward
cargo hold.  The suitcase had been loaded by a "Mr. Singh"
in Vancouver who was suspiciously not aboard.

At 7:08 A.M. air traffic control at Shannon airport,
Ireland, radioed Air India.  "Air India 182, good morning.
Squawk 2005 [activate transponder] and go ahead, please."  A
crewman on Air India  radioed  "Air India 182 is . . ." 
Then silence.  At 7:14 A.M.,  the traffic controller heard a
loud, rushing, sound. 

It was a fatal and tragic day for the passengers of Air
India 182 and things  weren't going well for "Mr. Singh"
either.  According to one explanation, he didn't mean kill
all those people.  You see, the timer for the bomb was set
on the previous day when the suitcases were loaded in
Vancouver.  The setting of the timers assumed no flight
delays - - but there were delays.   If Air India had landed
on time in England, the passengers would have left the plane
and the bomb would have destroyed the plane as is sat on the
tarmac.

This explanation is supported by a conversation that
allegedly took place between thee Sikh militants in London,
a few months after the bombing.   The three were Ajaib Singh
Bagri, a saw mill worker from Kamloops; Tara Singh Hayer, a
publisher of a Vancouver newspaper;  Tarsen Singh Purewal a
British newspaper publisher.  

Hayer recalled the conversation. "Bagri then said that if everything would have
gone as planned, the plane would have blown up at Heathrow
airport with no passengers on it.  But, because the flight
was a half hour or three quarters of an hour late, it blew
up over the ocean," Hayer told the RCMP.

Regrettably, two of the three who attended that meeting in
Britain are no longer alive to recall the details of the
conversation.

Calamity befell both publishers Hayer and Purewal after they
renounced extremism and printed newspaper articles critical
of Sikh militants.  Both were gunned down.  But Bagri is
still alive and being tried in Vancouver with codefendant
Ripudaman Singh Malik for his part in the Air India 182
bombing.  Undoubtedly, the court will want to hear Bagri's
account of the conversation.

But regardless of whether there was a mistake in timing or
not, it will be decades before Canadians recognize the
terrorist attack for what it was - - a precursor of
September 11, 2001.

Canadians at all levels were, and still are, in denial.  
The RCMP didn't take the ample warnings from the government
of India seriously.  If they had worn leather jackets and
rode Harleys, instead of colourful ethnic costumes with
ceremonial swords , the Sikh extremists might have been
taken seriously by the RCMP.

Canada's intelligence agency, CSIS, destroyed valuable taped
evidence that they had collected before the bombing, hoping
that the event would just go away.

It took six months before Canadian Aviation Safety Board
admitted that it was a bomb that brought down Air India 182.

The Canadian government was reluctant to even admit that
Canadians died in the terrorist attack.  Prime minister
Mulroney gave condolences to the Indian prime minister, as
if it was mostly Indians who died.

We learned nothing from the terrorist attack of June 23. 
The lesson should have been that terrorism can't be isolated
in a globalized society.  If we had learned that lesson,
perhaps the tragedy of September 11 could have been foreseen
and possibly avoided.

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