New suspects to be named in Air India bombing

A controversial human rights group in Punjab plans to release a report this weekend identifying new suspects it claims have confessed to the 1985 Air India bombing.
Sarabjit Singh Verka, of the Punjab Human Rights Organization, says group investigators travelled the world, interviewing more than 100 people in several countries with knowledge of the bombing.
Verka said they found more than one suspect "from the movement" who have admitted they were involved in the June 23, 1985, bombing plot centred in B.C. that killed 329 people aboard Flight 182 over the North Atlantic and two baggage handlers at Narita Airport in Japan.
"The movement" is a reference to the struggle for Khalistan, a separate Sikh nation some want carved from India's Punjab.
Verka said his group has been trying unsuccessfully to share its findings with the RCMP investigators from the Air India Task Force who are currently in Punjab interviewing potential witnesses.
The Canadian police, he said, are refusing to meet with the organization except with Indian officials present - something Verka says is unacceptable.
Verka wouldn't say more about the report or those purported to be the new suspects, but said the research paper will be publicly released "for the victims' families."
"We are having a meeting this weekend and then we will release it," he said in a telephone interview from Punjab.
Verka provided copies of e-mails between himself and task force investigator, Insp. Bart Blachford, about the request for a meeting.
In his e-mail, Blachford says that a senior official of the Punjab group, Justice Ajit Singh Bains, and his son, Rajvinder, had agreed to meet the RCMP along with India's Central Bureau of Investigation.
"The RCMP received permission from the Indian Govt. to meet with the PHRO, in the presence of the CBI. Initially you and your father were in agreement to meet with the RCMP in Chandigarh under those conditions," Blachford wrote.
"In a followup call with Cpl. [Dan] Sandhar and after speaking with your father, you and your father decided that you would not meet with us under the condition that the CBI be present at the meeting. Nor would you meet with us to discuss the situation. We have advised the CBI that no meeting will take place at your request." Blachford also said the RCMP would still like a copy of the report "in order to advance our investigation into the bombing of Kanishka," which is the name Air India gave the doomed airliner.
But Verka told The Sun that the human rights organization has lost faith in the RCMP because of its close relationship with Indian authorities and will give them nothing.In a subsequent e-mail to Blachford, the group denied there had been an agreement to meet with the CBI present.
The PHRO, which has maintained close separatist ties since it began in 1985, has stirred controversy in connection with the Air India probe before.
20/11/08 Kim Bolan/Vancouver Sun/Canada.com, Canada

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Categories: Air India - International Nov 2008, NACIL Nov 2008, Safety Nov 2008