Punjab group to release list of new suspects in Air India bombing

Vancouver: A controversial human rights group in India's Punjab region 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 multiple suspects "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 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 now in Punjab interviewing potential witnesses.
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, initially agreed to meet the RCMP along with India's Central Bureau of Investigation.
18/11/08 Kim Bolan/Canada.com, Canada

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