Justice delayed, not denied

The five-year jail sentence handed out to one of the Sikh activists arrested in the Kanishka bombing case is a heartening example of a case ...

The five-year jail sentence handed out to one of the Sikh activists arrested in the Kanishka bombing case is a heartening example of a case where the law, after a 15-year-long investigation process costing almost 30 million dollars, has finally succeeded in bringing a criminal to some justice. It has taken a long time, there have been several problems, such as the difficulty in establishing whether the plot was hatched in Canada or in India or whether the origin of the bomb was on Canadian soil or on Indian. Yet the long arm of the law has triumphed and brought an offender forward to face his punishment. The bombing of Air India Flight 182 was considered, before September 11, the most heinous terrorist attack in modern aviation history and for the families of the 329 people who died, it has been a miserably long wait to see that those responsible for this most shocking and dastardly crime were dealt with in the severest possible way. Now at last the families of the blast victims have gained some small comfort.

It may, however, be argued that the five-year jail sentence delivered to Inderjit Singh Reyat is a judgement where the punishment does not fit the crime. After all, five years is a relatively light sentence and the charges of murder have been converted to manslaughter in Reyat8217;s case, on the grounds that he was not the chief conspirator and in return for his pleading guilty. Yet in sharp contrast to the Sikh widows of the 1984 riots who recently threatened mass suicide if their husbands8217; killers were not punished and if they did not receive the promised compensation, the Canadian government has been tenacious and dogged in the pursuit of relief for its citizens. There is now hope that not only might Reyat8217;s confession lead to further revelations by the other accused, and for the families, for the governments of India and Canada as well as for the public, there is the satisfaction of knowing that the state has not given up its pursuit of those whose guilt it has set out to prove.

The bombing of the Kanishka, which crashed off the coast of Ireland, took place at a time when India was under attack from the Sikh terrorist. In the aftermath of Operation Blue Star, the assassination of Indira Gandhi and the anti-Sikh riots, the mid-eighties were defined, to some extent by the malevolence of the Khalistan movement. The bombing of the Montreal-Delhi jumbo jet was a most chilling manifestation of terrorism8217;s outrageous abilities and the Kanishka blast remains a metaphor of India-under-siege. This judgement by a Canadian court, however tempered, will not only bring relief to the families but also show that after the tragic loss of life, the due process of law is now inexorably in motion.