Monday, June 24, 2013

Family members gather to remember Air India victims

Vancouver: As she stood in front of the memorial wall Sunday that bears her husband Sam’s name, Perviz Madon tried to explain what it is like to mark yet another anniversary of the 1985 Air India bombing.
“Days before it, months before it, you just kind of think of June 23rd,” she said after a memorial service in Stanley Park. “I have lived more without Sam than I lived with him.”
She is still frustrated that only one man, Inderjit Singh Reyat, has been convicted in the bombing that left 329 dead and Madon a young widow with two small children.
Others at the gathering also expressed frustration at the fact that other suspects linked to the bombing have never been convicted.
Former MLA Dave Hayer, whose father Tara was on the Air India witness list when he was shot to death in 1998, said “we must make sure other people get convicted. It is not acceptable that just one person got convicted.”
NDP leader Adrian Dix also addressed the crowd, saying he has drawn inspiration from the courage of victim’s families, including his wife Renee Saklikar, who lost her aunt Zeb and uncle Umar Jethwa in the bombing.
The service was organized by Major Sidhu, who lost his sister Sukhwinder and her two children, 10-year-old daughter Parminder and son Kuldip, 9, in the bombing.
Khalsa Diwan Society leader Sohan Deo said the community gathered at the society’s south Vancouver temple earlier Sunday to mark the anniversary and remember the victims.
Air India flight 182, en route from Canada to India, exploded off the coast of Ireland after a suitcase bomb that was made in B.C. detonated aboard.
23/06/13 Kim Bolan/Vancouver Sun
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