Decades after Air India 182 bombing, families fear memories of tragedy are fading

Toronto Star

5 hours ago

Rob Alexander's father wasn't supposed to be on Air India Flight 182 on June 23, 1985.
'My mother had actually booked him on an Air France flight to go see his mother in India,' recalled Alexander, who was in his teens at the time.
'One of the guys that we knew, he worked for Air India and he wanted to sell my father a ticket very badly to get the commission or something.
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'Eventually, he agreed.'
Alexander recalled the small argument that ensued between his father and mother, and how she had to cancel his Air France ticket.
An Ontario surgeon, Dr. Anchanatt Mathew Alexander boarded the flight in Toronto on the evening of June 22.
Early the next morning, about 200 kilometres off the Irish coast, a bomb exploded, sending the Boeing 747 plunging 31,000 feet into the ocean and killing all 329 passengers and crew. The majority were Canadians.
About an hour earlier, two baggage handlers at Japan's Narita Airport died when another bomb, planted by the same group of terrorists, exploded before it could be transferred to a different Air India flight.
As the 40th anniversary of the tragedy looms, relatives of the victims fear the worst terror attack in Canadian history and its causes are being forgotten.
A 2005 federal investigation report and a 2010 commission of inquiry concluded the conspiracy was rooted in radical sections of the Sikh community seeking an independent homeland in India, known as Khalistan.
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But some victims' relatives say those issues have not been confronted in Canada, remaining at the heart of Indo-Canadian relations. Violence continues to swirl around the Khalistani separatist movement, including the 2023 assassination of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
'It's really concerning that government has allowed these sort of influences to bubble up again and not take care of things,' Alexander said.
'It really makes Canada look like a bit of a laughing stock internationally.'
Two men, Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, were acquitted in 2005 after a trial that cost almost $60 million and involved the construction of a high-security courtroom in Vancouver, ringed by bulletproof glass.
Inderjit Singh Reyat, the bombmaker and only person ever convicted in the case, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 2003. He was later convicted of perjuring himself to protect his co-conspirators.
The case is still not closed and remains under investigation, the RCMP said this week.
In 2022, Malik was killed in B.C. by two hit men who received life sentences. Their motives have never been revealed by police or prosecutors.
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Then, in June 2023, Nijjar, a prominent Khalistan proponent, was shot dead outside his temple. Four men face murder charges in the case that triggered international uproar when former prime minister Justin Trudeau accused India of links to the killing, which New Delhi denied.
Oakville, Ont., resident Deepak Khandelwal, lost two sisters on the Air India flight.
He said Canada continues to see protests featuring images of guns and violence. He did not single out the Khalistani movement, but gun imagery has sometimes featured in the movement's Canadian protests.
'Unfortunately, a lot of the mistakes that were made (in) the whole 40 years … seem to be repeating themselves,' Khandelwal said.
'We live in a very democratic society. I believe in that. I believe in free speech. But you can't go around demonstrating with violent images with guns and murder.'
'EXTREMISTS MISUSED SIKH IDENTITY'
Chandrima Chakraborty, professor at McMaster University who led the creation of the school's Air India Flight 182 memorial archive, said the tragedy involved the Sikh community as victims, too.
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'Yes, we can talk about Khalistanis, but let's also not forget that many people who were on that plane were Sikhs,' Chakraborty said.
'So it's not just that here were a particular separatist group and Hindus were killed or Muslims were killed. There were people of all religions there. There were peoples of all nations there.'
Vancouver's Khalsa Diwan Society, a prominent Sikh temple, is seeking the creation of a public learning centre about the attack.
Khalsa Diwan Society general secretary KS Dhaliwal, in an email, said the centre should not just be a memorial, 'but a place for healing, truth and education.'
'This tragedy left a deep scar, especially because it was misrepresented or misunderstood for decades,' he said. 'Most of the victims were from the Indo-Canadian community — many from Sikh backgrounds — and the attack was carried out by extremists who misused the Sikh identity for political goals.
'The broader Sikh community was not only devastated but also falsely associated with the perpetrators. Even today, many Sikh Canadians are still trying to reclaim the narrative and distance themselves from Khalistani extremism.'
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The victims' loved ones and others are also upset about the lack of knowledge and understanding about the attack.
Khandelwal said none of his three children were taught in Canadian schools about the bombing.
'We have been ignored,' said Khandelwal. 'I know education is a provincial responsibility. But it should be in Canadian history.'
A 2023 Angus Reid poll of roughly 1,500 Canadians found 89 per cent had little to no knowledge of the attack, and 58 per cent of those younger than 35 'never even heard of it.'
'How many people have heard of 9/11?' Chakraborty asked.
'Why is it that so many Canadians join in public mourning in various memorial services, vigils, etc., around 9/11, but we don't see that kind of resonance when it comes to (the) 1985 Air India bombing — something that the public inquiry report has called a Canadian tragedy?'
She said Canadian authorities initially treated the bombing as a foreign tragedy. ''It's foreigners who are importing their trouble, their animosities, their frustrations with their nations into our peaceful country, and it is their problem.''
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She said this attitude has raised questions of national belonging.
Dr. Bal Gupta, who lost his wife in the attack, organized victims' families afterwards, chairing the Air India 182 Victims Families Association 'out of necessity' because of a lack of support from Canadian governments.
Gupta, 82, is worried no one will carry on these efforts.
He said it's crucial Canadian governments dedicate more resources and education to the Air India bombing commemorations.
'Many of the Canadians … either they don't know about it, particularly the younger generation, or those who heard about it, they consider it as a tragedy which did not concern Canadians,' Gupta said.
He decried a lack of official events to mark the 40th anniversary. On the 20th anniversary, then prime minister Paul Martin attended memorial events in Ireland with victims' families and designated June 23 every year as a National Day of Remembrance for Victims of Terrorism.
Khandelwal said in lieu of official events, families have organized a number of memorial services to mark the anniversary in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver and Ireland.
He said both Prime Minister Mark Carney and Ontario Premier Doug Ford declined to attend.
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Ford told The Canadian Press he had prior engagements. Carney's office has not responded to requests for comment.
Khandelwal said attending a memorial should be a simple and easy thing for political leaders to do.
'That's an insult again to myself and to the families,' he said.
AN 'UNPRECEDENTED' TRIAL
In April 2003, the trial of Malik and Bagri began in Vancouver, with Reyat having already pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Camille Bains, a former reporter, covered the trial for The Canadian Press. It featured the highest level of courtroom security she had ever seen and media attention from around the world.
But despite the historic scale of the proceedings, in which Malik and Bagri were charged with 331 counts of first-degree murder, she was struck by how few members of the public attended.
'It wasn't really resonating with a lot of the public,' Bains said. 'I found that a little distressing.'
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Malik and Bagri were ultimately acquitted in 2005 after a trial tainted by false testimony from Reyat, whose perjury would earn him a further nine-year sentence, on top of his manslaughter sentences for the Air India and Narita bombings. He was freed in 2016.
Robert Wright, the Crown's lead prosecutor in the case, declined to comment on the trials themselves but said the proceedings were 'unprecedented,' involving more than 1,300 witnesses from nine countries.
He said the passage of time gave the Canadian justice system an opportunity to 'reflect and implement lessons learned from a trial unlike any we had previously experienced.'
Wright said the attack dramatically changed Canada's approach to airport and airplane security, along with increased awareness of possible terrorist activity.
'The victims' families are a wonderful, resilient group of people who continue to step forward to ensure the memory of this horrific event stays at the forefront of Canadian consciousness,' he added.
Dhaliwal with the Khalsa Diwan Society said the bombing motivated some in the community to reject extremism.
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'It made many of us more determined to speak out against extremism and to protect the true values of Sikhism — peace, service and justice,' he said.
Still, tensions remain.
A 2024 memorial for victims of the Air India bombing in Vancouver's Stanley Park was attended by a group supporting Khalistan separatism, standing in the background with the movement's blue-and-yellow flags.
Some carried signs saying the mourning families 'deserve the truth' and calling on Canada to 'investigate Indian diplomats' role' in the bombings.
Neither the legal proceedings, the investigation report, nor the commission of inquiry found evidence of such a role. Instead, all pointed to a conspiracy among militant Sikh separatists.
Social media videos showed some people angrily shouting at the group.
Chakraborty said a better public understanding of what happened in 1985 would help navigate recurring themes in the present.
'So often, when we talk about particular kinds of extremism, we also turn that whole community into a monolith,' she said. 'That is also worrisome because that is not the case.
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'There is extremism within Hindu communities, there is extremism within Christian communities … It has to be an open conversation so that the politicians can learn from families, from communities, but it has to be an open exchange of conversation.'
RCMP continue to investigate the bombings, said Sgt. Vanessa Munn.
'Should new information or different information that we have not received in 40 years emerge, we will investigate it to uncover the truth,' she said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 19, 2025.