Although 39 years have passed since the Kanishka air plane tragedy near the coast of Ireland, and despite all the sympathy they received at that time from Irish people and officials when they needed this the most, the extreme grief of many victim families continues to this day, accentuated by the fact that there is a very strong sense of not getting justice.
On June 23, 1985 a bomb exploded in the Air India 182 Kanishka airplane flight from Canada to India, killing all 329 passengers and crew. This was till then (and before 9/11) the biggest terrorist attack involving passengers in the world history.
In fact, the tragedy could have been much bigger – as a part of the same planned conspiracy another suitcase bomb was to be placed in another Air India plane in Tokyo, after being shifted from a plane from Canada, but this exploded at the airport itself killing two baggage handlers and injuring four. If this had exploded in an airplane as intended, again here too hundreds would have died.
Among the 329 passengers who died in Air India 182 explosion, the overwhelming majority (268) were Canadian citizens, mostly of Indian origin, and most of the remaining (24) were Indian citizens.
Bob Rae Report
The Honorable Bob Rae, former premier of Ontario, Canada, who was asked by the Canadian authorities to inquire into this tragedy, wrote in his report submitted to the Minister for Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness:
“Children going to visit grandparents, young tourists looking forward to their first experience of India, women and men of all ages, flight attendants and pilots, all 329 passengers and crew were killed… Whole families, children of promise, parents of achievement and kindness, were murdered.”
As later investigations revealed, the entire operation had been planned by Khalistani terrorists based in Canada.
The honorable Bob Rae wrote in his report:
“No conflict in any homeland, no religious or ethnic dispute, no ideology can justify what happened.”
He further wrote:
“Let it be said clearly — the bombing of the Air India flight was the result of a conspiracy conceived, planned and executed in Canada. Most of its victims were Canadians. This is a Canadian catastrophe, whose dimension and meaning must be understood by all Canadians.”
It is important that the perpetrators of the crime showed no remorse and set about spreading terror in their community to silence potential witnesses. Two potential witnesses were killed, many others were threatened. Two Sikh journalists were killed. One of them, also a publisher, had been shot earlier too and hence was confined to a wheel chair.
Bob Rae noted in his report after meeting several members of the Sikh community in Canada and other communities:
“They pointed to the evidence of fear within communities that has stopped people telling the truth about what happened.”
Further Bob Rae wrote:
“In the course of my work I encountered many in the Sikh community deeply troubled by threats of violence, the past misuse of Gurdwaras (temples) for political purposes and the abuse of charitable fundraising for extremist causes.”
While potential witnesses were fearful of coming forward, reports nevertheless appeared of prior warnings regarding the disaster being ignored and serious mistakes being made in what appeared more and more to be a preventable disaster if adequate caution and alertness had been observed.
Bob Rae noted that Canada failed to embrace the case as its own and families who had lost their members felt isolated from fellow-Canadians. The case was pursued in highly questionable ways and despite the hand of Khalistani extremists being well-established and mentioned in several reports, when the two main accused were let off in 2005 (one was let off earlier despite being mentioned by some as the main conspirator) several family members of victims who had waited for a very long time for justice broke down in the court.
Keeping in view the widespread distress and dissatisfaction regarding the way in which Canada’s most destructive terrorist act had been handled, the Canadian government now set up another inquiry under a former Supreme Court judge. This inquiry concluded that this “largest mass murder in Canadian history” had resulted from “a cascading series of errors.”
Following this the then Prime Minister issued an apology to the victims admitting that their legitimate need for answers and indeed for empathy had been treated with administrative disdain for years.
However, neglect and isolation of victims continued and on the 38th anniversary of the disaster a study by Angus Reid noted that the overwhelming majority of Canadians were ignorant about the huge tragedy.
However several troubling questions have remained regarding not just the denial of justice but also regarding whether the huge tragedy could have been prevented if adequate cautions had been observed at a sensitive time when this was clearly required. The official report of Bob Rae titled ‘Lessons to be Learned’ states:
“Messrs. Reyat, Parmar and other were involved in the building of at least two bombs and they tested a device while under the surveillance of by members of CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Services).”
Regarding the destruction of taped intercepts of conversations of Khalistani conspirators by the CSIS, Justice Josophson noted that the destruction of these tapes was “unacceptable negligence”.
There has been much discussion of how the suitcases/bags with bombs found the way into the planes without accompanying passengers. The report by Bob Rae said:
“Although the phone number from which the phone call (for airline reservations) was made is known, the identity of the individual who made the reservations is not, nor is it known who got the suitcases containing the bombs to the airport.”
This report further stated:
“Baggage should not have travelled without accompanying passengers. There was no reconciliation check between records of bags and passengers before the flights took off.”
All this happened despite this being a period of high security alertness. The Bob Rae report says:
“Despite the precautions and protections that were supposed to be in place, almost everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. The bags should never have been checked without accompanying passenger in Vancouver.”
This report also stated that most of the information that the Canadian Security Intelligence Services (CSIS) had obtained was not promptly shared by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).
BBC report on Kanishka plane bombing
A BBC report (‘Unravelling Canada’s 1985 Air India investigation’ published on 17 June 2010) also pointed out that the Canadian Security Intelligence Services had destroyed tapes of telephone calls made by Khalistanis suspected to be involved in the Air India explosion case.
One reason given for this has been that one of their (CSIS) agents had infiltrated a circle of Khalistanis planning the attack but was pulled out three days before the attack. If so, then the Canadian authorities are likely to have possessed significant information regarding the attack prior to the attack taking place.
This information should have been immediately shared, instead of being destroyed to protect the CSIS agent or for other reasons. Hence there should have been prior warnings and alerts, and much more preventive action could have been taken and the suitcase filled with bombs should not have been loaded into the airplane without the presence of a ticket-holder passenger in the plane owning the suitcase.
Another carelessness which proved very costly was that, as pointed out in two BBC reports (the other one being titled ‘Air India Flight 182: 1985 bombing back in news after Canada row’ dated 27 September, 2023), two important suspects were trailed by the Canadian police to a wooded area on an island and soon a big explosion was heard, but the police ignored this.
Anyone trailing terror group members to secluded, wooded areas and then hearing an explosion would have at least suspected that some bombs were being tested but this or any related possibility was ignored by these policemen. It is possible that prompt action at this stage could have prevented the huge tragedy.
In addition as BBC News reports pointed out the Supreme Court Judge Inquiry “heard that an unidentified witness had warned the Canadian police of a plot to blow up a plane much before the attack.” Hence the BBC report said:
“Canadian authorities have been accused of not doing enough to prevent the attack and of bungling the investigation.”
Hence it is clear that several Canadian authorities did not observe the proper precautions, to say the least. However those who were most well-informed soon realized that this terrorist attack as well as several other terrorist attacks and assassination attempts in various parts of the world with Canadian links to various extents were reflections of a wider, very serious and high-risk problem—proliferation of several international terrorist groups in Canada.
A former director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Ward Elcock drew attention to this increasing problem (after the Kanishka attack but a little before the 9/11 attack) while speaking before a special committee of the Senate.
He informed on the basis of his high-level access to information that with perhaps the singular exception of the USA, there were more international terrorist organizations active in Canada than any other country in the world and that the counter-terrorism branch of the CSIS was investigating over 50 such organizations and about 350 individuals (statement as reported in a report of the Fraser Institute titled ‘Canada’s Inadequate Response to Terrorism’).
This is significant as we have a top Western security intelligence official telling us that the most number of international terrorist organizations have an active presence number one in the USA and number two in Canada.
The fact that the CSIS had found over 50 international terrorist organizations to be active in a country with a population of only about 40 million is important.
Elcock also stated what these organizations are involved in, and this of course is also very important. He mentioned — logistical support for terrorist attacks, fundraising in aid of terrorism, exploitation of ethnic communities through propaganda and disinformation, intimidation (also coercion and manipulation) of immigrants, provision of safe haven in Canada to terrorists, smuggling of immigrants and transit of terrorists to and from the USA.
As long as effective steps are not taken to check all this, such great tragedies as the Kanishka disaster can happen again, and therefore it is extremely important to take effective actions to prevent the proliferation of terror groups.
[The writer, Bharat Dogra, is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Man over Machine, Planet in Peril and A Day in 2071.]
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