Air India victims’ relatives insulted by one-time payment offer government, attended, payment, members, person

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Air India victims’ relatives insulted by one-time payment offer
‘This is absolutely disgraceful,’ says pilot’s son of the $24,000 deal


Air India victims’ relatives say they are hurt and insulted by a Canadian government offer to pay $24,000 for each person killed in the June 1985 terrorist attack.

The offer of a one-time ex gratia payment was made at a meeting in Toronto Thursday attended in person and via teleconference by about 40 family members of the 329 bombing victims. Most of the families settled their legal claims for compensation in the early 1990s, according to a government spokesman. (An ex gratia payment is given where no legal obligation exists.) The total government offer would be just under $7.9 million for all victims.

“We are just seething,” said Anil Singh Hanse, an Australian whose father Narendra piloted the flight brought down by a B.C.-made bomb. “This is insulting. Where the hell did they pull this figure from?”

Retired judge John Major suggested some form of payment be made to families in his massive Air India inquiry report in June 2010, although he made no official recommendation.

The $32-million inquiry showed that numerous warning signs of the pending terrorist attack were missed by Canada’s security agency and that missteps hampered the subsequent RCMP investigation.

Major also said the families were treated with “administrative disdain” for years by the Canadian government and deserved more than just an apology.

While Hanse said he has been fighting for justice and not cash, the amount offered this week offended him.

“Now we know about all the negligence that came out in the report,” Hanse said Friday. “This is absolutely disgraceful. It is one step forward, two steps back.”

Amarjit Bhinder, whose co-pilot husband Satinder perished, was also offended by the government’s offer.

“This is really an insult to my husband,” Bhinder said from Singapore. “That would have been about 45 days pay for him.”

She said she is going to decline the money on principle.

Toronto resident Bal Gupta, who lost his wife Ramwati in the bombing, said most who attended the meeting were disappointed with the offer.

“I thought the amount could be more. But at the same time it is an ex gratia payment and not compensation,” he said. “Definitely the amount is small.”

Gupta said that paying the families was not part of the terms of the inquiry so could not be an official recommendation of Major’s report.

He said that if most of the other recommendations from the inquiry are implemented, he will be satisfied.

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“More than anything, the inquiry made it clear it was a Canadian tragedy,” Gupta said. “If they implement the majority of the recommendations, then definitely Canada will be a safer place.”

Mike Patton, who works in Public Safety Minister Vic Toews’ office, said those offended by the amount may not understand “this is not meant to be compensation for the tragedy.”

“It is certainly not our goal to insult anyone. The families were treated disrespectfully to the point where the government of Canada felt they should receive more than an apology but some money,” said Patton, Toews’ director of communications, pointing out most of the legal claims for compensation had been settled years ago.

If relatives want to revisit those agreements, based on the new information that came out of the inquiry, they “still have access to the courts to deal with that,” he said.

Only one man has ever been convicted in the Air India bombing, which remains Canada’s deadliest mass murder. Former Duncan electrician Inderjit Singh Reyat pleaded guilty to manslaughter and received a five-year sentence. He is now serving a nine-year term for lying at the trial of two other men acquitted in the case, Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri.

Both men are suing the B.C. government and police for malicious prosecution and Reyat is appealing his perjury conviction.

Toronto resident Shipra Rana, whose sister Shyla died in the deadly terrorist attack, feels the paltry financial offer just perpetuates the mistreatment of the families.

She said they spoke very little after the meeting — they just looked at each other in shock.

“It is just like Justice Major’s words — if this were an Air Canada flight with Anglo-Saxons aboard, we wouldn’t have been treated this way,” she said. “When it comes down to the loved ones we lost, they gave them no value.”

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A memorial for the victims of the Air India tragedy was opened in 2010 in Stanley Park. Victims’ relatives say they are hurt and insulted by a Canadian government offer to pay $24,000 for each person killed in the June 1985 terrorist attack.


A memorial for the victims of the Air India tragedy was opened in 2010 in Stanley Park. Victims’ relatives say they are hurt and insulted by a Canadian government offer to pay $24,000 for each person killed in the June 1985 terrorist attack.



Inderjit Singh Reyat was the only person ever convicted in connection with the 1985 bombing of an Air India flight in which 329 people died. Their survivors are upset at a government offer to pay $24,000 for each person killed in the terrorist attack.