Toronto: Families of the 329 victims of
the 1985 Air India Kanishka bombing have rejected the Canadian
government's one-time compensation offer of 24,000 dollars for
each person killed in the country's worst terror attack,
saying it was "insulting".
The offer of a one-time ex-gratia payment was made at
a meeting in Toronto last week attended in person and via
teleconference by about 40 family members of the victims.
The Canadian government announced the 24,000 dollar
ex-gratia as recommended by the Air India inquiry commission,
headed by former Canadian chief justice John Major.
Kanishka flight 182 from Montreal to Delhi was blown
off near Ireland on June 23, 1985, killing all 329 people on
board, mostly of Indian origin. This was the worst terror case
in the country's history.
"We are just seething," Anil Singh Hanse, an
Australian whose father Narendra piloted the flight, was
quoted as saying by the Vancouver Sun.
"This is insulting. Where the hell did they pull this
figure from?"
Major suggested some form of payment be made to
families in his massive Air India inquiry report in June 2010,
although he made no official recommendation.
The USD 32-million inquiry showed that numerous
warning signs of the pending terrorist attack were missed by
Canada's security agency and that missteps hampered the
subsequent Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) investigation.
PTI
First Published: Monday, July 11, 2011, 23:33