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What
the trial means ? An end of sorts is in sight for many things connected with the bombing of an Air-India plane in 1985. Finally, after 15 years, three people have been arrested in British Columbia and two of them charged with killing 329 people on the flight between Montreal and New Delhi. It will be for the trial to determine whether the accused Canadian Sikhs are guilty of the charges against them. However, simply having a trial means closure is now possible for a number of public and private wounds. First, no longer will this be a mass murder bathed in the acidulous rumour that, while the police knew who committed the crime very early on, because of incompetence or fear of retribution on the part of potential witnesses they couldn't arrest anyone. When the predicted 1,000 witnesses finally do testify, all Canadians will get to see what the $28-million that was spent on the investigation actually uncovered. There will be a resolution to the question: Did the RCMP bungle it? And no longer will this be a case where the relatives of the dead have to say to themselves every morning: Nothing has happened in this case; my loved ones are still unavenged; there is no justice in the world. Whatever the trial's outcome, an essential issue will have been resolved for the families. However long it finally took, they will get to see that the Canadian justice system has not forgotten them. Finally, the trial should be a balm for the political wounds that continue to pain Vancouver's Sikh community. That community, by its own admission, has been riven by violence and political disagreement rooted in Indian communal politics. Around the world, militant proponents of a separate Sikh state called Khalistan have been painted as terrorists by intelligence communities. Since the storming by Indian troops of the holiest site in Sikhism, the Golden Temple of Amritsar, British Columbia has been the scene of unsolved Khalistan-linked assaults on, and murders of, those who spoke out against the path of violent independence. Among the early victims was Ujjal Dosanjh, now the province's Premier, who shortly before the plane bombing sustained a near-fatal beating for his moderate views. Whatever the trial's outcome, the political passions of a conflicted community will be laid open for general public viewing. Canadian Sikhs will get to see themselves in a way that fear of violent reprisal has often hidden in shadow, and will be able to ask in a public way: Is this who we are and who we must always be? Are there peaceful ways to resolve our political disagreements in Canada? Sometimes the psychological vehicle that a court case becomes is as important as the juridical outcome. Whatever the conclusion of the trial, the wounds of Air-India will feel differently afterward. Source: The Globe and Mail October 31, 2000, Tuesday.
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