Air India Flight 182

Parmar visited Inderjit Singh Reyat, an auto mechanic and electrician who lived in Duncan, British Columbia, a small community north of Victoria on Vancouver Island. He asked him to construct a bomb; Reyat later claimed he had no idea for what it would be used. Reyat asked various people in the community about dynamite, saying he wanted to remove tree stumps on his property.[36] Reyat also discussed explosives with a co-worker, while expressing anger at the Indian government and Indira Gandhi in particular.[37]

Later that year, Ajaib Singh Bagri accompanied Parmar as his right-hand man in the militancy against the Indian government. Bagri worked as a forklift driver at a sawmill near the town of Kamloops. He was known as a powerful preacher in the Indo-Canadian community.[38] The pair travelled across Canada to incite Sikhs against the Indian government for conducting Operation Blue Star. They used the meetings as fundraisers for Babbar Khalsa. A former head priest in Hamilton testified that Bagri said, "The Indian Government is our enemy, the same way the Hindu society is our enemy."[39] Bagri told a congregation, "Get your weapons ready so we can take revenge against the Indian Government".[39]

On 28 July 1984, the founding convention of the World Sikh Organization (WSO) was held at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The WSO's constitution was committed to diplomacy and non-violence, and it said the organisation would "strive for an independent Sikh homeland by peaceful means." Although Parmar was blocked at the border (he had been put under 24-hour watch), Bagri gave an hour-long speech at the convention.

He said, "until we kill 50,000 Hindus, we will not rest," before a crowd of 4,000 people; this statement was quoted against him at his later trial.[40] Bagri defended hijackers who had forced the 'hated' Indian government into negotiations with the Sikh leadership, and was critical of Gandhian non-violence. "We are to die in the battlefield, fighting, by sacrificing ourselves. To die such a death, which is the mission of the Khalsa, is our religion".[41] Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front members and Afghan mujahideens were also invited to the rally.[42] An Afghan mujahid said, "We will bring together all movements against India because India allies itself with the Soviet Union."[43] (At the time, the Soviet–Afghan War was underway, and many foreign mujahideen had gone to Afghanistan to help the Muslims.)

A professional translator testified later as a witness that Bagri's speech in Punjabi had been distorted by observers who failed to understand "its context within Sikh history and literature;" he denied that Bagri had urged Sikhs to take revenge against all Hindus. He conceded that Bagri was trying to "inflame passions and arouse national pride".[44]

In April 1985, a Canadian familiar with blasting was asked by Reyat how much dynamite it would take to blow up a tree stump. Reyat asked numerous people in Duncan about explosives, and expressed the need for revenge. Reyat sought cases of dynamite and appeared willing to pay three times the normal price. He eventually confided to one acquaintance that it was not about stumps, but "trouble in the old country", that he needed "explosives to help my countrymen."[47] One friend declined to get him dynamite, but did lend him a 400-page manual on mining with explosives.[47]

On 8 May 1985, Reyat bought a Micronta digital automobile clock at the RadioShack store in Duncan.[48] Designed for a 12-volt automobile electrical system, it could also be powered by a 12-volt lantern battery. The 24-hour alarm activated a buzzer. Reyat returned to the store a week later to buy an electrical relay, after asking how to get the buzzer signal to power another device. Wiretappers recorded nine telephone calls in one month between Reyat and Parmar's residence in Vancouver; Reyat called either from his residence or workplace on Vancouver Island. As a result of this activity, the government added Reyat to the list of persons being monitored for terrorist activities.[49] The Canadian government would later accuse Reyat of lying in 2003, when at first he said he did not know for what the three clocks he had bought could be used. He later said Parmar needed an explosive device to blow up a bridge or something large in India, and that he needed timers for an explosive device. The relay could be used to trigger the detonator circuit for a blasting cap, which would provide the initial shock needed to detonate larger explosives, such as dynamite.[36][37]

Reyat later visited a television repair shop, seeking help for a partially disassembled car clock wired to a lantern battery. He claimed that he needed help so that the buzzer stayed on rather than intermittently beeping, so that it would turn on a light in his camper to wake him up. The repairman knew his friend did not own a camper. Justice J. Raymond Paris said at Reyat's 1991 trial that this was an odd use for a timer.[50]

By mid-May, Reyat had gone into the woods to test a device with a 12-volt battery, cardboard cylinder, gunpowder, and some dynamite, but the device failed to work.[42] The wooded area was in proximity to Duncan and Paldi. Later, Reyat acquired between six and eight sticks of dynamite "to blow up unidentified stumps if need be in the future" from a Duncan well driller after visiting his house to fix a truck. He also obtained a few blasting caps days later. On 31 May 1985, Reyat brought his timer, attached to a boombox, into his shop so that his fellow employee at Duncan Auto Marine Electric could help him fix it for a friend, but he returned the radio after it did not work properly.

On 4 June, CSIS agents Larry Lowe and Lynn Macadams followed Parmar and a "youthful man"[51] (identified only as "Mr. X", "Third Man" or "Unknown Male") as they went from Parmar's house to the Horseshoe Bay Ferry Terminal, rode the Nanaimo-bound ferry, and visited Reyat at his home and shop at Auto Marine Electric. The three drove to a deserted bush area, where Reyat was observed taking an object into the woods. Staying out of sight, the agents, who did not bring a camera, only heard a bang which sounded like a "loud gunshot". Later tests showed it could also have been an explosion, and later searches turned up remnants of an aluminium "electrical blasting cap".[52] J.S. Warren, director-general of counter-terrorism at CSIS, would later ask on 16 July 1986 why they did not ask the police to stop and question the suspects, or search the vehicle, which might have deterred the bombing plot.[53]

The next day, Reyat purchased a large Sanyo component tuner, model FMT 611 K, at Woolworths, and left his name and telephone number on the charge slip, which was later found in a search of his home. Reyat also bought smokeless gunpowder from a sporting goods store, signing "I. Reyat" on the explosives log. Study of debris from the Narita explosion would eventually show the bomb had been housed inside a Sanyo tuner with a serial number matching a model sold only in British Columbia, and used a Micronta clock as a timer, which powered a relay with an Eveready 12-volt battery to trigger blasting caps to set off a high explosive consistent with sticks of dynamite,[49] all matching items purchased by Reyat. This would lead to his eventual conviction.[49] As late as 2010, Reyat admitted only to buying and assembling some parts, but denied he ever made a bomb, knew what the bomb was to be used for, who was behind any plot, or that he ever asked or knew the name of the man who he said stayed in his house for a week completing construction of the explosive device after his device failed.[54]

On 9 June 1985, a police informer in Hamilton reported that Parmar and Bagri had visited the Malton Sikh Temple, warning the faithful that "it would be unsafe" to fly Air India.[55] Vancouver police also monitored militants 11 days before the bombing. A leader of the International Sikh Youth Federation complained that no Indian consuls or ambassadors had yet been killed, but the response was, "You will see. Something will be done in two weeks".[56]

The suspects in the bombing used pay phones and talked in code. Translators' notes of wiretapped conversations include the following exchange between Talwinder Parmar and a follower named Hardial Singh Johal on 20 June 1985, the day the tickets were purchased:

Parmar: Did you write the story?

Johal: No, I didn't.

Parmar: Do that work first.[57]

This conversation appears to be an order from Parmar to book the airline tickets.[58] It is believed that "writing the story" referred to purchasing the tickets; afterward, Johal phoned Parmar back and asked if he could "come over and read the story he asked for", to which Parmar agreed.[59]

Moments after the wiretapped conversation, at 01:00 UTC, a man calling himself "Mr. Singh" made reservations for two flights on 22 June: one for "Jaswant Singh" to fly from Vancouver to Toronto on Canadian Pacific Air Lines (CP) Flight 086 and one for "Mohinderbel Singh" to fly from Vancouver to Tokyo on Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 003 and connect to Air India Flight 301 to Bangkok. At 02:20 UTC on the same day, another call changed the reservation in the name of "Jaswant Singh" from CP 086 to CP 060, also flying from Vancouver to Toronto. The caller further requested to be put on the waiting list for AI 181 from Toronto to Montreal and AI 182 from Montreal to Bombay. The next day, at 19:10 UTC, a man wearing a turban paid for the two tickets with $3,005 in cash at a CP ticket office in Vancouver. The names on the reservations were changed: "Jaswant Singh" became "M. Singh" and "Mohinderbel Singh" became "L. Singh". The reservation and purchase of these tickets together would be used as evidence to link the two flights to one plot.

One telephone number left as a contact was Vancouver's Ross Street Sikh temple. The other number became one of the first leads tracked by investigators, and was traced to Hardial Singh Johal, a janitor at a Vancouver high school.[60][61] Johal was an avid follower of Talwinder Singh Parmar, and thus closely scrutinised in the investigation following the Air India bombing. He was alleged to have stored the suitcase explosives in the basement of a Vancouver school and to have purchased the tickets for the flights on which the bombs were placed. Mandip Singh Grewal recounted how he saw and recognised Johal as his school's janitor when he said goodbye to his father, one of the Flight 182 victims, at the airport on the day of the bombing.[62]

Reyat went to work on 21 June. Phone records show he called Johal at 7:17 p.m. A witness whose name was protected testified that Bagri asked to borrow her car the night before the bombing to take some suitcases to the airport, though he would not be flying with them.[63]

A casualty list was provided by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.[89][7] The victims included 268 Canadians, 27 Britons, 22 Indians, and 12 people of undetermined nationality.[90] Canadians of Indian descent made up the majority of the passengers.[91]

Between 82 and 86 passengers were children, including six infants.[92][93][94] There were 29 entire families on the plane. Two children not on board had both parents on board, resulting in them becoming orphaned. There were six sets of children of their entire families. There were 32 people not on the aircraft who had the remaining members of their families on board.[93]

Most of the victims resided in southern Ontario and were Hindus. Some of the victims were Sikhs;[95] around 35 passengers were Sikhs from Greater Montreal.[96] In terms of metropolitan areas, the Greater Toronto Area was the home of the majority of the passengers, with Greater Montreal also having the next largest number of passengers.[97] Some passengers originated from British Columbia.[98] Forty-five passengers were employees of Air India or relatives of Air India employees.[91] Notable passengers and crew included Inder Thakur, an Air India purser and former actor along with his wife and son; and Yelavarthy Nayudamma, a scientist and chemical engineer.

105 passengers boarded the flight at Mirabel Airport, while 202 passengers who travelled on Flight 182 had boarded at Toronto Pearson Airport.[99] The report stated that interlining passengers boarding Flight 181 in Toronto who became passengers on Flight 182 included ten passengers connecting from Vancouver, five passengers from Winnipeg, four passengers from Edmonton, and two passengers from Saskatoon. It stated that all of these passengers had taken flights on Air Canada,[73][79]^: 31 and no interlining passengers boarded Flight 182 in Montreal.[79]^: 39 In the documentary Air India 182, Renée Sarojini Saklikar stated that her aunt and uncle had taken a Canadian Pacific Air Lines flight from Vancouver to connect to Air India 182; the two were on AI182 while it was in Montreal.[100][101] The flight crew and cabin crew of Flight 182 had boarded in Toronto and commanded the segment of Flight 181 from Toronto to Montreal.[79]^: 33

There were 68 persons who cleared customs in Toronto and were scheduled to re-board Flight 181 so they could travel to their final destination, Montreal. There was a practice of passengers who intended to fly to Toronto actually buying tickets to Montreal, because tickets to Montreal had a lower cost than tickets to Toronto. On the flights going to Canada, such passengers simply disembarked in Toronto and chose not to re-board the flight to Montreal. Three passengers scheduled to go onward to Montreal never re-boarded Flight 181, and so there were 65 passengers destined for Montreal who flew the Toronto-to-Montreal segment.[79]^: 33

The multiple suspects in the bombing were members of a Khalistani group called the Babbar Khalsa (banned in Europe and the United States as a proscribed terrorist group) and other related groups who were at the time agitating for a separate Sikh state (called Khalistan) in Punjab, India.[110]

• Talwinder Singh Parmar (26 February 1944 – 15 October 1992) – a Canadian citizen born in Punjab and living in British Columbia, was a high-ranking official in the Babbar Khalsa. His phone was tapped by CSIS for three months before the bombing.[28] He was killed by the Punjab police 15 October 1992 in an encounter with six other terrorists.
• Inderjit Singh Reyat (born 11 March 1952) – was born in India, but moved to the United Kingdom with his family in 1965 and later to Canada in 1974, and holds dual British and Canadian citizenship. He worked as an auto mechanic and electrician in Duncan, British Columbia on Vancouver Island. Investigation of the bombing in Tokyo led to discovery that he had bought a Sanyo radio, clocks and other parts found after the blast. He was convicted of manslaughter for constructing the bomb. As part of a deal, he was to testify against others, but as he declined to implicate others, he would be the only suspect convicted in the case.[111] Reyat was released to halfway house in 2016[112] and now fully released with some restrictions since early 2017 to his family's home in BC.[113]
• Ajaib Singh Bagri (born 4 October 1949) – a mill worker living in Kamloops. During the founding convention of the World Sikh Organization in New York in 1984, Bagri gave a speech in which he proclaimed that, "until we kill 50,000 Hindus, we will not rest."[114] He and Ripudaman Singh Malik (4 February 1947 – 14 July 2022) were acquitted in 2005.[115] Bagri was living in Kamloops as of 2011.[116] In July 2022, Malik was murdered in a targeted attack in Surrey, British Columbia.[117]
• Surjan Singh Gill (born 19 October 1942)– was living in Vancouver as the self-proclaimed consul-general of Khalistan. Some RCMP testimony claimed he was a mole who left the plot just days before its execution because he was told to pull out, but the Canadian government denied that report. He later fled Canada and was believed in August 2003 to be hiding in London, England.[118]
• Hardial Singh Johal (born 20 November 1946)– a follower of Parmar who was active in the Gurdwaras where Parmar preached. On 15 November 2002, Johal died of natural causes at age 55. His phone number was left when ordering the airline tickets, he was seen at the airport the day the luggage was loaded, and he had allegedly stored the suitcases containing the bombs in the basement of a Vancouver school, but was never charged in the case.[119]
• Daljit Sandhu – named by a Crown witness as the man who picked up the tickets. During the trial, the Crown played a video from January 1989 in which Sandhu congratulated the families of Indira Gandhi's assassins[120] and stated that "she deserved that and she invited that and that's why she got it." Sandhu was cleared by Judge Ian Josephson in a 16 March judgment.
• Lakhbir Singh Rode – the leader of the Sikh separatist organisation International Sikh Youth Federation. In September 2007, the commission investigated reports, initially disclosed in the Indian investigative news magazine Tehelka,[121] that Parmar had allegedly confessed and named the hitherto-unnamed Lakhbir Singh Rode as the mastermind behind the explosions.[122] This claim appears to be inconsistent with other evidence known to the RCMP.[123]

On 17 August 1985, Reyat became a third suspect once the receipt for the tuner was found with his name. On 6 November 1985, the RCMP raided the homes of Parmar, Reyat, Gill and Johal. In a 4+1⁄2-hour interview, Reyat denied all knowledge of the test blast or even Parmar. After he was told the CSIS had seen both of them, he changed his story that Parmar really wanted to build a device powerful enough so that he could take the device back to India to destroy a bridge. He explained that the gunpowder in the test was a failure, as the device fizzled. The search of Reyat's house produced a carton with an unusual green tape also found in the Narita blast and a can of Liquid Fire-brand starting fluid matching fragments found at the blast site, along with blasting caps and dynamite, including a pound of dynamite in a bag taken out its original tube casing, though none was consistent with blast residue. Reyat insisted only the clock, relays and tuner had been purchased for other than "benign purposes". There was insufficient evidence to hold Parmar as charges were dropped days later.

Bagri would later state before his later trial that he knew he was probably a suspect by October 1985, but insisted he would have faced charges if there were any evidence he had anything to do with the bombing.[124] It was established by November that it was a man with a Sikh name who probably checked the bag in Vancouver that caused the crash.[106] Parmar was not seen in Canada sometime after late 1986, as authorities believed him to be living in Pakistan where he continued operations against India.

Authorities initially lacked evidence to link Inderjit Singh Reyat directly to either the Narita or Air India blasts and pursue a conspiracy to commit murder charge. Instead, Reyat pleaded guilty on 29 April 1986 to possession of an explosive substance and possession of an unregistered firearm. His sentence was a light $2,000 fine. Just three months later, Reyat moved his family from Canada to Coventry, near Birmingham, in the UK. Reyat was soon hired at a Jaguar factory where he worked for nearly two years.[125]

Mounties working with prosecutor Jardine and RCMP and Japanese experts eventually determined the components of the bomb from fragments and matched them with items that Reyat possessed or had purchased. Prosecutor Jardine visited Tokyo five times to meet with Japanese authorities, and Canada formally asked that evidence to be sent to Canada. Still lacking sufficient evidence for a murder charge, Jardine recommended two manslaughter charges and five explosives-related counts, resulting in a request to Britain to extradite Reyat, who was arrested on 5 February 1988 as he was driving to the Jaguar car plant. After lengthy proceedings to extradite him from Britain, Reyat was flown to Vancouver on 13 December 1989 and his trial began 18 September 1990. On 10 May 1991, he was convicted of two counts of manslaughter and four explosives charges relating to the Narita Airport bombing. He was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment.[126]

Fifteen years after the bombing, on 27 October 2000, RCMP arrested Malik and Bagri. They were charged with 329 counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of the people on board Air India Flight 182, conspiracy to commit murder, the attempted murder of passengers and crew on the Canadian Pacific flight at Japan's New Tokyo International Airport (now Narita International Airport), and two counts of murder of the baggage handlers at New Tokyo International Airport.[127][128] It became known as the "Air India Trial".[129]

On 6 June 2001, RCMP arrested Reyat, who about to finish his earlier 10-year-sentence, on charges of murder, attempted murder, and conspiracy in the Air India bombing. On 10 February 2003, Reyat pleaded guilty to one count of manslaughter for aiding in the construction of a bomb. He was sentenced to five years in prison.[130] The court claimed Reyat was guilty of helping make of the bomb, but that he lacked any knowledge of how it would be used and lacked an intent to kill. He was expected to provide testimony in the trial of Malik and Bagri, but prosecutors were vague.[131]

The trial of Malik and Bagri proceeded between April 2003 and December 2004 in Courtroom 20,[132] more commonly known as "the Air India courtroom". At a cost of $7.2 million, the high-security courtroom was specially built for the trial in the Vancouver Law Courts.[133] On 16 March 2005, Justice Ian Josephson found the two accused not guilty on all counts because the evidence was inadequate:

I began by describing the horrific nature of these cruel acts of terrorism, acts which cry out for justice. Justice is not achieved, however, if persons are convicted on anything less than the requisite standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Despite what appear to have been the best and most earnest of efforts by the police and the Crown, the evidence has fallen markedly short of that standard.[134]

In a letter to the Attorney General of British Columbia, Malik demanded compensation from the Canadian government for wrongful prosecution in his arrest and trial. Malik owes the government $6.4 million and Bagri owes $9.7 million in legal fees.[135][136] On July 14, 2022, Ripudaman Singh Malik, one of the men acquitted in the 1985 Air India terrorist bombings, was shot to death in Surrey, B.C.[137]

In February 2006, Inderjit Singh Reyat was charged with perjury with regard to his testimony in the trial.[138] The indictment was filed in the Supreme Court of British Columbia and lists 27 instances in which Reyat allegedly misled the court during his testimony. Reyat had pleaded guilty to constructing the bomb, but denied under oath that he knew anything about the conspiracy.

In the verdict, Justice Josephson said:

I find him to be an unmitigated liar under oath. Even the most sympathetic of listeners could only conclude, as do I, that his evidence was patently and pathetically fabricated in an attempt to minimise his involvement in his crime to an extreme degree, while refusing to reveal relevant information he clearly possesses."[139]

On 3 July 2007, with perjury proceedings still pending, Reyat was denied parole by the National Parole Board, which concluded he was a continued risk to the public. The decision meant Reyat had to serve his full five-year sentence, which ended 9 February 2008.[140]

Reyat's perjury trial began in March 2010 in Vancouver, but was abruptly dismissed on 8 March 2010. The jury was dismissed after "biased" remarks about Reyat by a woman juror.[141]

A new jury was chosen. In September 2010, according to the Lethbridge Herald newspaper, jurors were told Reyat had lied 19 times under oath.[142] On 19 September 2010, Reyat was convicted of perjury.[143]

On 7 January 2011, he was sentenced to 9 years in prison by Justice Mark McEwan, who remarked that Reyat "behaved nothing like a remorseful man unwittingly implicated in mass murder," adding that, "[i]n the witness box, Mr. Reyat behaved like a man still committed to a cause which treated hundreds of men, women and children [as] expendable."[143][144] In February 2011, Reyat filed an appeal stating that the judge "erred in law, misdirected the jury and failed to tell jurors there was no evidence to support portions of the Crown's closing address," and called it "harsh and excessive," asking for a new trial.[145]

In January 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected Reyat's bid to appeal his perjury conviction. The country's top court did not disclose its reasons as per customary practice.[146]

In March 2014, the British Columbia Court of Appeal dismissed Reyat's appeal that the 9-year length of the sentence, the country's longest sentence for perjury, was unfit. The court ruled the gravity of the perjury in such a case was without comparison.[147]

On 28 January 2016, Inderjit Singh Reyat was released on parole. He was released from a halfway house less than 13 months later, on 14 February 2017, with restrictions.[148][144]

The Canadian government had been warned by the Indian R&AW about the possibility of terrorist bombs aboard Air India flights in Canada, and over two weeks before the crash, CSIS reported to the RCMP that the potential threat to Air India as well as Indian missions in Canada was high.[52]

In June 1985, there was an Air India telex message that suggested planes could be targeted by "time delay devices." Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario James Bartleman also testified that, as a senior intelligence official in the federal Department of External Affairs, he saw a security "intercept" with a specific warning of a threat against the airline on the weekend of the bombing.[144]

In his verdict, Justice Ian Josephson cited "unacceptable negligence" by CSIS when hundreds of wiretaps of the suspects and other informants were destroyed.[149][150] Of the 210 wiretaps that were recorded during the months before and after the bombing, 156 were erased. These tapes continued to be erased even after the terrorists had become the primary suspects in the bombing.[151]

Because the original wiretap records were erased, they were inadmissible as evidence in court.[152] CSIS claimed the wiretap recordings contained no relevant information, but an RCMP memo states that "There is a strong likelihood that had CSIS retained the tapes between March and August 1985, that a successful prosecution of at least some of principals in both bombings could have been undertaken."[153] "The CSIS investigation was so badly bungled that there was a near mutiny by CSIS officers involved in the probe," said the agent who destroyed the tapes once he had been granted anonymity in January 2000 by Globe and Mail journalists.[150] One agent "said he felt compelled to destroy the tapes (that were in his possession) because he was morally obliged to do everything in his power to protect the safety of his sources. '[I] decided it was a moral issue... If their identity had become known in the Sikh community, they would have been killed. There is no doubt in my mind about that.'"[150]

Tara Singh Hayer, the publisher of the Indo-Canadian Times and a member of the Order of British Columbia,[154] provided an affidavit to the RCMP in 1995 claiming that he was present during a conversation in which Bagri admitted his involvement in the bombings.[155] While at the London offices of fellow Sikh newspaper publisher Tarsem Singh Purewal, Hayer claimed he overheard a meeting between Purewal and Bagri in which Bagri stated that "if everything had gone as planned the plane would have blown up at Heathrow airport with no passengers on it. But because the plane was a half-hour to three quarters of an hour late, it blew up over the ocean." On 24 January that same year, Purewal was killed near the offices of the Des Pardes newspaper in Southall, England, leaving Hayer as the only other witness.[156]

On 18 November 1998, Hayer was shot dead while getting out of his car in the garage of his home in Surrey, British Columbia.[157] Hayer had survived an earlier attempt on his life in 1988, but was paralysed and used a wheelchair.[157] As a consequence of his murder, the affidavit was inadmissible as evidence.[158] This was later cited as a reason why the suspects in the bombing were eventually acquitted in 2005.

During an interview with Bagri on 28 October 2000, RCMP agents described Surjan Singh Gill as an agent for CSIS, saying the reason that he resigned from the Babbar Khalsa was because his CSIS handlers told him to pull out.[159]

After the subsequent failure of CSIS to stop the bombing of Flight 182, the head of CSIS was replaced by Reid Morden. In an interview for CBC Television's news program The National, Morden claimed that CSIS "dropped the ball" in its handling of the case. A Security Intelligence Review Committee cleared CSIS of any wrongdoing. However, that report remains secret to this day. As of June 2003, the Canadian government continued to insist that there was no mole involved.[160][161]

Air India Flight 182 memorial in Toronto, Ontario

Monument and playground in Stanley Park, Vancouver, commemorating victims of Flight 182, dedicated July 2007

On 23 June 2005, 20 years after the downing of Air India Flight 182, Prime Minister Paul Martin attended a memorial service in Ahakista, West Cork, Ireland, with victims' families to grieve. This would be the first time a Canadian Prime Minister had visited the Irish memorial, which was built right after the bombing.[144] Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, on the advice of Martin, declared the anniversary a national day of mourning. During the anniversary observances, Martin said that the bombing was a Canadian problem, not a foreign problem, saying,

Make no mistake: The flight may have been Air India's, it may have taken place off the coast of Ireland, but this is a Canadian tragedy.[170]

Ujjal Dosanjh, the moderate Sikh who had been attacked in a prelude to the Air India bombing, was by this time a member of Martin's cabinet as federal Minister of Health, and had previously in the interim been Premier of British Columbia.

In May 2007, Angus Reid Strategies released the results of public opinion polling of whether Canadians viewed the Air India bombing as a Canadian or Indian tragedy and whom they blamed: 48% of respondents considered the bombing as a Canadian event, while 22% thought it was a mostly Indian affair; 34% of those asked felt both CSIS and airport security personnel deserved a great deal of the blame in addition to 27% who believed the RCMP were largely to blame; 18% mentioned Transport Canada.[171]

Ken MacQueen and John Geddes of Maclean's said that the Air India bombing has been referred to as "Canada's 9/11." They disagreed, however, stating the following:

In truth, it was never close to that. The date, 23 June 1985, is not seared into the nation's soul. The events of that day snuffed out hundreds of innocent lives and altered the destinies of thousands more, but it neither shook the foundations of government, nor transformed its policies. It was not, in the main, even officially acknowledged as an act of terrorism.[172]

Memorials were erected in Canada and elsewhere to commemorate the victims. In 1986, a monument was unveiled in Ahakista, Ireland, on the first anniversary of the bombing.[173][174]

Subsequently, a groundbreaking occurred on 11 August 2006 at a playground that would form part of a memorial in Stanley Park, Vancouver, British Columbia.[175]

Another memorial was unveiled on 22 June 2007 in Humber Bay Park East, Toronto, Ontario; many of the bombing victims had lived in Toronto. The memorial features a sundial, the base of which consists of stones from all provinces and territories of Canada, as well as the countries of the other victims, and a wall, oriented toward Ireland and bearing the names of the dead.[176]

A third Canadian memorial opened in Ottawa in 2014.[177] A fourth memorial was unveiled in Lachine, Montreal on the 26th anniversary of the tragedy.[178] There are no memorials in India as of yet.[178]

In film and television:

• CBC Television announced the start of filming for Flight 182, a documentary about the tragedy directed by Sturla Gunnarsson.[179][180] Its title was changed to Air India 182 before premiering at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in Toronto in April 2008. It subsequently premiered on CBC Television in June.[181]
• The crash was featured in season 5 of the Canadian-made, internationally distributed documentary series Mayday, on the episode "Air India: Explosive Evidence".[182]

Many journalists have commented on the bombing throughout the decades since it occurred.

• In 2006, International bestselling author Anita Rau Badami published Can you hear the nightbird call?, a fiction novel that explored the lives and events leading up to the Air India bombing, which incorporated factual details of the tragedy.[183]
• Eight months after the bombing, The Province newspaper reporter Salim Jiwa published Death of Air India Flight 182.[184]
• Loss of Faith: How the Air-India Bombers Got Away With Murder was published by the Vancouver Sun reporter Kim Bolan in May 2005.[185]
• Jiwa and fellow reporter Don Hauka published Margin of Terror: A reporter's twenty-year odyssey covering the tragedies of the Air India bombing in May 2007.
• In her short story, "The Management of Grief," Indian-born American writer Bharati Mukherjee uses fiction to explore the enduring grief of relatives of Air India 182 victims. "The Management of Grief" was originally published in the fiction collection The Middleman and Other Stories.[186] Mukherjee also co-authored The Sorrow and the Terror: The Haunting Legacy of the Air India Tragedy (1987) with her husband, Clark Blaise.[187]
• Inspired by mainstream Canada's cultural denial of the Air India tragedy, Neil Bissoondath wrote The Soul of All Great Designs.[188]
• In 2013, Canadian poet Renée Sarojini Saklikar created a collection of memorial and response poems, Children of Air India: Un/authorized Exhibits and Interjections.[189]
• The Air India bombing is central to the plot of the novel All Inclusive by Toronto-based author Farzana Doctor.
• Dr. Chandra Sankurathri, husband and father of Air India victims, wrote an autobiography called Ray of Hope.[190]

The Pada memorial awards at Laurentian University were established in honour of victim Vishnu Pada, the husband of Lata Pada, Indian-born Canadian choreographer and Bharatanatyam dancer.[191]

The University of Manitoba created the Donald George Lougheed Memorial Scholarship in honour of Air India victim Donald George Lougheed. It is awarded to computer engineering students.[192]

Laxminarayan and Padmini Turlapati, the parents of victims Sanjay and Deepak Turlapati, created the Sanjay Deepak Children Trust.[94]

Sankurathri Foundation was established by Dr. Chandra Sekhar Sankurathri[193] in Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh in memory of his wife Manjari, son Sri Kiran and daughter Sarada, victims of the Air India Flight 182. SF implements educational programs through Sarada Vidyalayam, health care programs through Sri Kiran Institute of Ophthalmology and disaster relief programs through Spandana.

• Honourable Mr. Justice B. N. Kirpal (Judge, High Court of Delhi). Indian Government Report of the Court Investigating the accident of Air India Boeing 747 Aircraft VT-EFO, "Kanishka" on 23 June 1985 (PDF) (Archive Archive 2). 26 February 1986.