Air India Massacre; Sikh Perspective

Charnjit Singh Bal

Legal Perspective

Whether the Sikh suspects, who are being prosecuted in the Canadian court of law for the June 1985 Air-India massacre complicity in which two baggage handlers were blown to smithereens at Japan’s Narita Airport and the 329 innocent children, men and women of Air-India plane Kanishka were spilled into the ocean to their horrifying deaths off the Irish coast, are found guilty or not, will depend upon the of Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and Canadian intelligence and Security Service’s (CISS) competence to investigate and provide evidence, witnesses’ intrepidity, veracity and credibility and prosecutors and defense lawyers’ shrewdness.

However, since the Canadian legal system that is based on medieval (June 1215 AD) British Magna Carta that gives the benefit of doubt to the suspect and lays onus on the victim and/or prosecution to prove that the suspect is guilty, the prosecution’s limitations and compulsions are ominously obvious. And considering RCMP and CSIS's alleged bungling, i.e. erasing of suspects' telephone conversation tapes due to mutual rivalry, the circumstantial nature of evidence and lengthy time delay portend insurmountable odds against the prosecution.

The alleged murders of two potential prosecution witnesses, Tersem Singh Puréwal and Tara Singh Hayer and purported reneging of another, Sukhminder Singh Cheema, add to the odds against the prosecution. Then there is suspicious death of an alleged suspect, Avtar Singh Narwal, 45, a director of the Babbar Khalsa Society. He was traveling along Highway 5A between Kamloops and Merrit in Oct. 1998 when his vehicle left the highway and plunged into Nicola Lake. Police said they have not found why Narwal's 1998 Nissan Maxima went off the road. Sergeant Les Povarchook said a motorist who stopped at the scene took 15 minutes to pull Narwal from the car and by then he was dead. Povarchook said mechanical tests on the vehicle show it was in good condition.

Evoked by the letters to the newspaper editors, radio talk shows and grapevine there is perception in the community at large, that there are links between the murders and intimidations and the Sikh militant organizations, Babbar Khalsa and International Sikh Youth Federation.

Religious Objectivity

The religious objectivity regarding an issue differs from the legal perspective. It is said ‘God created man in his own image’ meaning that the God endowed the man with the providential virtues. The primal purpose of a religion is to evoke these virtues i.e. magnanimity, altruism, compassion, fortitude and rectitude in a man to enable him to be the guardian of the divine creation. Ideally a religionist, especially a preacher and/or leader should not just profess to be religious but exemplify religiosity, morality, integrity and credibility. The onus is on him to keep his image pristine. Even an element of suspicion blemishes the pious image.

And a true Sikh has the added responsibility to exemplify courage to fight atrocity, tyranny, persecution and Terrorism because Sikhism was born and groomed to eradicate these socio-religious and political evils. But the Air-India case prosecution has explicitly cited that the complicity suspects Ripudaman Singh Malik, Ajaib Singh Bagri and their alleged former companion Surjan Singh Gill, who is said to have fled to UK, have had extra marital affairs. The defense has not challenged or refuted the citations. The extra marital affairs and the Air India complicity suspicion attest that these self styled Sikh leaders have failed the morality, integrity and credibility litmus test, and that they were merely sanctimonious Sikhs. So from the religious objectivity they are guilty of breach of Sikhism’s noble code of conduct.

In an ideal religion the virtues of tolerance, rectitude altruism, pluralism and socio-cultural harmony should to be fostered. The evils of militancy, tyranny and vindictiveness, terrorism/counter-terrorism must be condemned and the violators of the religious doctrines ought to face retributions. But history bears witness that the authoritative orthodox ecclesiastics of all religions, rather than promoting the ideal religious philosophy and pragmatic practice, have often been preoccupied with persecuting the their detractors i.e. rationalistic religionists whom they consider threat to their dogmatic authority.

Although Sikhism is a lay religion, i.e. there is no priestly or ecclesiastical hierarchy the self-styled Sikh Jathedars – that literally means group commander- and Singh Sahibs too usually issue illicit Hukamnamas (edicts, decrees) against the reformist Sikh scholars only. Since the issuance of Hukamnamas against terrorists, cultists, felons, larcenists and licentious Sikhs in the recent history is virtually unheard of, there won’t be any Hukamnamas against the Air-India Holocaust suspects even if they are found to be guilty of Air India genocide complicity.

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