Warnings over Sikh extremists ignored, Dosanjh tells Air India inquiry

Politicians and police did not appreciate the danger Sikh extremists in Canada presented at the time of the Air India bombing and did not take warnings seriously, Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh told the Air India inquiry Wednesday.
Dosanjh, who represents the Vancouver South riding, spoke out publicly against Sikh extremism in Canada while a lawyer and activist in the early and mid-1980s. He was hospitalized in 1985 after being beaten by a Sikh extremist wielding an iron bar.
"If you have two brown guys arguing, it becomes a tribal issue," Dosanjh told the inquiry in Ottawa, which is examining the investigation into the 1985 bombing of Air India Flight 182 that killed 329 people, including 82 children.
"Those assaults and those threats, people in power and people out of power felt they weren't happening to Canadians."
Dosanjh, a former NDP premier of British Columbia and a former Liberal federal cabinet minister, recalled that he never got an answer from then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney when he wrote to warn him of the gravity of the problem in 1985.
The letter was sent just two months before a bomb destroyed the plane as it was en route from Canada to India. Among the victims were 280 Canadian citizens, mostly born in India or of Indian descent.
Dosanjh also told the inquiry he shared a perception with many members of the Indo-Canadian community that the Air India investigation would be treated differently had it been an Air Canada flight that was attacked instead.
"Without really accusing anyone, I would ask the question: 'Were police as alert and aggressive in pursuing the issue?' " Dosanjh said. "I think that's a legitimate question."
"It took some time for people to really wake up to the fact that this was a Canadian tragedy."
21/11/07 CBC New Brunswick

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Categories: Air India - International Nov 2007, Foreign Nov 2007, Safety Nov 2007