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| To grasp Canada's failure to ensure justice for Air India 182 bombing victims, Reyat makes for a good case study. |
January 28, 2016, NewsCrunch
The release of Inderjit Singh Reyat brings back the traumatic memories Air India Flight 182, which was bombed on 23 June 1985 at 31,000 feet in the air. All 329 on board, mostly Canadian Indians, perished.
Canada's botched investigation ensured that nobody was held guilty for the ghastly crime committed by Sikh extremist group Babbar Khalsa seeking an independent Sikh homeland, Khalistan. After 31 years, Canada officially maintains that the probe is still on.
Reyat, the only man who served time in jail in relation to the Air India 182 bombing, was convicted on man slaughter and perjury charges.
The mastermind Talwinder Singh Parmar fled to India and was killed by Punjab police in 1992.
Two other arrests were made - financier of the plot Ripudaman Singh Malik and accomplice Ajaib Singh Bagri. Both were released in 2005 for lack of evidence.
Among other suspects one went missing, another died of natural causes and others were not booked at all due to lack of evidence.
After the bombing, Reyat, an auto mechanic and electrician in Duncan, British Columbia, was raided along with other suspects.
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The raid yielded explosive materials, clock, relays and tuner at his house, which he admitted had been purchased for other than "benign purposes". He also admitted that he had unsuccessfully helped Parmar build an explosive to blow up a bridge in Punjab.
Under that Canadian law, that was insufficient evidence to charge him. Reyat emigrated to England and started work at a Jaguar factory.
In he meanwhile, the probe continued and the materials found in Reyat's house were linked to a related blast at Narita, Japan, where a bomb had exploded before it could be loaded to an Air India plane, on 23 June 1985.
He was brought back to Canada and convicted on two counts of manslaughter and four explosives charges in 1991 and sentenced to 10 years in jail.
As evidence piled up against Reyat, he was arrested again in 2001 on charges of murder and conspiracy to bomb Air India 182. In 2003, Reyat pleaded guilty to one count of manslaughter and a charge of aiding in the construction of a bomb.
This time he got five years in prison.
The prosecutors and even the judge found that Reyat had lied extensively under oath to protect the other accused and was tried for perjury.
In 2010, he was convicted and sentenced to nine years in prison. On January 27, Reyat was released on parole after he completed two-thirds of his sentence.