Last week a Canadian judge acquitted the two Sikhs that the Canadian authorities had charged for bombing the Air India flight 182. This verdict outraged the families of the passengers on board that doomed flight. I applaud the verdict and the Judge for not bowing to pressure and emotions but looking at the merits of the evidence presented which he stated was all circumstantial. The truth of the matter is that a few Indians that have entered Canadian politics have been under pressure to bring charges against someone. So they picked Mr. Malik, a self-made Sikh millionaire and a devout Sikh as their targets.
The trial was a malicious act to deface the reputation of the two men in the Sikh community. The community in BC is already divided between fundamentalist and the moderns. The moderns used this trial to show the world that they are not the only ones with skeltons in their closets, they brought out irrelevent witnesses to the stand only to ruin the reputation of the two men. Despite all the "evidence" and witnesses that were presented the court saw through the malicious attempts and based the judgment on facts. And the facts are Malik and Bagri were not responsible. The million dollar question remains who was?
When Canadian and Indian authorities are able to bring the culprits to justice, only then will justice be served to the victims. But today is the beginning of that process, we should celebrate that two innocent men were freed. The victims families should stand with the Malik and Bagri family to questions why were they charged and imprisoned for 19 months? And who is really guilty of the bombing?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Yes, I remember how, as a child,I had reacted to this gruesome happening, how I had felt the anguish and empathy for the victims and their families. Every time I fly in a plane, I happen to relive the incident which I merely read about in the newspapers. It is so deeply embedded in our psyche that we cannot get rid of the pain we all felt when it happened.
Now when the wounds of the victims' families are again bleeding, I wish to appeal to everybody concerned to raise the question that If it was not these men, who was it that masterminded it all? This has to be raised not only for the sake of those who lost their lives in the sea, or for those who survived them, but for the sake of questioning the judicial systems of the countries concerned. As conscious citizens of the world, we have every right to know the answers to this elusive question.
Post a Comment