Loss of Faith: How the Air-India Bombers Got Away with Murder

by Kim Bolan

Book Overview

Riveting and shocking,Loss of Faithis essential reading for all Canadians. On June 23, 1985, Canada found itself on the international terrorism map when two bombs built in B.C. detonated within an hour of each other on opposite sides of the world, killing 329 men, women, and children. Canadian Sikh separatists, upset at the Indian government for attacking their religion's holiest shrine, the Golden Temple, were immediately suspected by the RCMP of...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 077101130X
• ISBN13: 9780771011306
• Release Date: September 2005
• Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
• Length: 380 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Terrorism wth Justice Gone Crazy

An exceptional investigative report of terrorism perpetrated by militant Sikhs in Canada. Kim Bolan was a cub reporter for The Vancouver Sun in 1985 when a bomb exploded on Air-India Flight 182 flying from Toronto, Canada to New Delhi, India. The plane exploded off the coast of Ireland killing all 329 passengers and crew aboard. Another bomb exploded at the airport in Narita, Japan killing two baggage handlers; this bomb was intended for another flight to India. The bombing was in retaliation for the attack by the Indian Army on the Golden Temple in Amristar, Punjab, Sikhism's holiest shrine in India. The author of this fascinating book followed the incident for 20 years and became intimately involved with the families of the victims. She also became so knowledgeable about the terrorist perpetrators that her life was threatened. She lays responsibility for the tragedy on the extremist element of the Sikhs and on the Canadian government. Inept Canadian authorities, she says, failed to protect the innocent citizens of Indian descent and, 20 years later, the justice system failed to punish the guilty.

Who Bombed Air India?

Who Bombed Air India? Perhaps no one is better acquainted with the details of the Air India case and the surrounding events than Kim Bolan. She had barely joined the Vancouver Sun newspaper as a rookie reporter when Air India Flight 182 exploded in the sky on July 23, 1985, killing all 329 on board. Ever since, Bolan has doggedly followed the case for two decades, making four trips to India and several visits to Pakistan, the U.S., and the U.K. This book, the result of her long and arduous 'sewa' (service, p. 206), takes the reader through the backdrop, the bombing, and the tortuous investigation that climaxed in the twin trials and acquittals of two Vancouver-based Sikhs, Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri. The entire episode is packed with ironies. Cowards like Bagri, who publicly called for the murder of 'fifty thousand Hindus' (p. 46), are roaming free. Meanwhile, the few who demonstrated the courage to expose the violence and hatred were either assassinated or are living under death threats. Tara Singh Hayer was the founding editor of the vernacular weekly Indo-Canadian Times. A failed attempt on his life on August 28, 1988, just days after he published his 'most pointed reference to Bagri' (p. 196), left him in a wheelchair. Harkirat Singh Bagga told the police that 'Bagri had provided him with the .357-caliber revolver he had used to shoot Hayer' (p. 191). Tarsem Singh Purewal, publisher of the British Punjabi-language newspaper Des Pardes, was assassinated in 1995 after he 'wrote an article that was extremely critical of the I.S.Y.F. [International Sikh Youth Federation] and promised more exposés on the Babbar Khalsa' (p. 195). 'Rani Kumar' (not her real name) was the star witness against Malik. A note she had tucked into her journal said that 'if she were found dead, she had not committed suicide' (p. 153). Many of the Sikhs at the forefront on both sides of the equation were 'born again' Sikhs. That is, they had shed the orthodox external regalia, including unshorn hair and turbans, only to reacquire the symbols in the religiously hyper-charged milieu following Operation Bluestar. (Bluestar was the Indian army's 1984 offensive on the Darbar Sahib or Golden Temple complex at Amritsar, Punjab, a Sikh Vatican of sorts.) Examples include Talwinder Singh Parmar, Bagri, and Hayer. As the book makes clear, Canadian federal authorities might never have laid many of the related charges (e.g. against Malik's Khalsa School) had they not been repeatedly shamed into doing so by Bolan's proactive investigative journalism. Inderjit Singh Reyat is the only person ever to have been convicted in connection with this case. He was convicted for manslaughter for making the bombs that destroyed two Air India craft, including Kanishka (Flight 182). The revolver used to shoot Hayer and the one found illegally in Reyat's possession were both traced back to the same source in California (p. 215). Malik would surely not wish to be jud