A memorial honouring the victims of the bombing of Air India Flight 182, at Stanley Park in Vancouver, Canada.
| Photo Credit: AP

Investigations into the bombing of the Air India Flight 182 remain “active and ongoing”, the Canadian police have said, ahead of the deadly bombing’s 39th anniversary memorial.

The Montreal-New Delhi Air India ‘Kanishka’ Flight 182 exploded 45 minutes before it was to have landed at London’s Heathrow Airport on June 23, 1985, killing all 329 people on board, most of them Canadians of Indian descent. The bombing was said to have been executed by Sikh militants in retaliation for ‘Operation Bluestar’ undertaken by the Indian Army in 1984 to flush out militants from the Golden Temple.

In a statement on Friday, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Assistant Commissioner David Teboul called the bombing the “greatest terror-related loss of life involving and affecting Canadians” in the country’s history as he offered “deepest sympathies, understanding and support to the families of the victims”.

“The Air India investigation is the longest and certainly one of the most complex domestic terrorism investigations that the RCMP has undertaken in our history,” Mr. Teboul said. “Our investigative efforts remain active and ongoing,” he said.

Asserting that the impact of the bombing had “not diminished with time”, he said the trauma it caused had impacted generations. “We must never forget those innocent lives lost to this tragedy and other acts of terrorism,” he said.

Noting that this year marks the 39th anniversary memorial of the bombing, he said: “At the memorials, previous and current employees from the investigation and our greater organisation, past and present, will ensure we remember those lost and those left to deal with the unthinkable.”

“Over the years, attending the memorials has been an opportunity to pay our respects to the victims and their families and show our appreciation for all those that did so much to respond to and investigate the tragedy,” he said, encouraging people to do the same in private or at the memorials in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa.

India’s consulates in Vancouver and Toronto have planned a memorial service to mark the anniversary of the bombing.

A memorial is scheduled on June 23 at the Air India Memorial at Stanley Park’s Ceperley Playground area in Vancouver. Another memorial service is scheduled at South Lawn, Queen’s Park, Toronto.

Montreal, Canada:

Two people were killed and six others wounded late Saturday in a shooting in the parking lot of a reception venue in Ottawa, authorities said.

Two weddings were taking place at the venue when gunfire erupted outside, sending shocked guests scrambling for safety.

“It was chaos, there was no general direction of where people were running, it was just everywhere,” Nico, who came to the wedding to pick up his friend, told AFP, declining to give his surname.

“It was rapid shots, and then there was screaming, and then there was a pause, and then there were more shots, probably like 15-16 more shots that I can recall,” Nico said.

The shooting began at 10:21 pm Saturday (0221 GMT Sunday) in the parking lot of a south-end convention hall where two separate wedding receptions were being held simultaneously.

Police “said to stay in our vehicles. We could not leave the scene,” the witness said.

Ottawa police confirmed that fatalities were of two men, aged 26 and 29, both from Toronto, Canada’s largest city.

Police said that Americans were among the six wounded but that their lives were not in danger. Their identities were not released.

“We are in the process of connecting the pieces of the puzzle,” Martin Groulx, police inspector, told AFP about the ongoing investigation.

He said police had no sign for now to suggest the shooting was a hate crime “related to race or religious beliefs.”

“But we do not eliminate this option,” he added, specifying that the investigation had yet to determine a motive.

As of Sunday afternoon, no arrests had been made.

The two deaths from the shooting bring to 12 the number of homicides recorded in 2023 in Ottawa, Canada’s capital, which has a population of about one million.

Several Canadian cities have seen a marked increase in armed violence in recent years with increasingly frequent shootings, according to the Canadian government.

Since 2009, the country has seen an 81 percent increase in violent gun crime.

 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)