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Star-
DEATH OF
AIR INDIA
HIGHT
182
UM JIWA
THE DEATH OF AIR INDIA FLIGHT 182
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the 329 victims of the sabotage of
Air India Flight 182 and the two victims of the Narita bomb,
as well as their families. Also to the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police for their extraordinary work, members of the Canadian
Security Intelligence Service, who must remain in the
shadows, and investigators in the United Kingdom, Ireland,
Japan, the USA and India. Finally, to my wife and children
for all their help.
THE DEATH OF AIR INDIA
FLIGHT 182
Salim Jiwa
Editorial Assistant: Don Hauka
A STAR BOOK
published, by
the Paperback Division of
W.H. ALLEN & Co. PLC
A Star Book
Published in 1986
by the Paperback Division of
W.H. Allen & Co. plc
44 Hill Street, London W1X 8LB
Copyright © Salim Jiwa 1986
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Anchor Brendon Ltd., Tiptree, Essex.
ISBN 0 352 31952 6
This book is sold subject to the condition that
it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise,
be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated
without the publisher’s prior consent in
any form of binding or cover other than that in
which it is published and without a similar
condition including this condition being imposed
on the subsequent purchaser.
PART ONE
THE DISASTER
A Passage to India
Vancouver, 22 June 1985, 7:00 a.m.
Sukhwinder Uppal, her two children and her friend Pradeep
Sidhu bowed respectfully as they entered the domed Sikh
temple in Vancouver. The morning prayers were just coming
to an end as the four entered the main prayer halt They
walked towards the priest, who sat on the red carpet in front of
the small pc lium with his legs crossed under him, and sat
down before him. With her head bowed, her voice barely
higher than a whisper, Sukhwinder asked for a prayer for
guidance from the holy man, a portent for her trip halfway
around the world to her homeland, India.
The turbaned priest picked up the Guru Granth Sahib - the
Sikh Holy Book. A smile played beneath his salt-and-pepper
beard. He had offered many such prayers in his years of
service to followers of the monotheistic faith, for no devout
Sikh ever undertakes a major venture without a prayer and a
Hukam Kama - a divine order - for this is required by an
ancient tradition. The priest opened a page at random and
started to read the first verse on which his eyes fell, his voice
rising and falling rhythmically with the cadence of the words.
‘Man does not decide who lives on this earth and who goes
away. The decision of life and death is made by God,’ read the
learned man of God, in the tongue in which the book was
written - Punjabi. As Sukhwinder sat with her head bowed,
contemplating the holy pronouncement, her friend Pradeep
looked up sharply at the mention of death. The priest’s words
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had made her heart skip a beat. Sukhwinder Uppal was like a
sister to her. She knew well the life of hardship the gentle 37-
year-old widow had endured, the trail of disasters that had
followed her and robbed her of the joys of life. The verse was a
reminder to both women that we are all creatures of destiny.
The passage chosen by chance from the Guru Granth Sahib is
accepted by the faithful as the divine decision on the task at
hand.
The two women and the children stood up and bowed,
retreating from the priest and the podium. As they walked out
of the temple towards their car, Pradeep’s thoughts were still
about the Hukam Narna. The mention of death had taken her
back to the terrible day in May 1975 when Sukhwinder, two
months pregnant, was left a helpless widow by a car accident.
The crash was a double blow for the tight-knit family. It had
claimed both her husband Harbhajan, who was looking
forward to the birth of the new baby and hoping he would
have a son, and Sukhwinder’s brother Dilbar Sidhu. With her
only daughter Parminder just learning to walk and the baby
on the way, Sukhwinder was devastated. Her entire family
went into shock. The young widow did not smile again until
the day in December when she gave birth to her son, Kuldip.
Living in the basement of her father’s house in South
Vancouver, Sukhwinder got on with the task of raising two
little children on her own. She got a job with a drycleaning
firm and led a quiet, earnest life, her intense faith helping her
to carry on. But once in a while, memories of her husband
would overwhelm her, and she would retreat into a quiet
comer of the house and cry silently long into the night.
Her dream through these dreary years was to travel to her
birthplace with her children. Slowly the dream was taking
shape. Pradeep, a travel agent with Gaba Travel in
Vancouver, had done everything she could to make the trip
easier for the widow, who did not speak English very well.
She had initially booked Sukhwinder and her two children
on an Air India flight leaving from Toronto on 29 June, but
her friend wanted to leave a week earlier and had visited the
children’s school, Moberley Elementary School, to ask
permission for them to leave before the start of the summer
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holidays. It hadn’t been easy to book a new set of seats for 22
June. It took several phone calls and Pradeep’s considerable
influence as a travel agent to get the three seats on Air India
Flight 182, which was nearly full already. A day before her
friend and the children were to leave, Pradeep also went to the
Indian consulate on their behalf to pick up visas for the visit to
India.
As she drove them to the airport through the heavy traffic
on Marine Drive that Saturday morning, after the visit to the
temple, Pradeep was still uneasy. Had Sukhwinder received a
message of consolation for her past sorrows from the divine
book? Could it be a reference to the miscarriage of twins
suffered by the widow’s sister-in-law the previous week after
six months of pregnancy? Or was it a warning of future
disaster? Still, Pradeep managed a chuckle as she glanced into
her rear-view mirror at the children sitting in the back seat of
her car. Her thoughts shifted to the visit of a friend to the
Uppals’ house the previous night. The friend, Sukhwinder’s
workmate, had brought gifts for the trip: a sari, a watch and a
box of cookies. Nine-year-old Kuldip beat his sister to the
watch, swiftly putting it on before Parminder could even
move.
Later, after the visitor had gone, Parminder stood up and
gave Kuldip a dirty look. She turned to her mother and
demanded, ‘Well, what did your friend bring for me?’
‘She brought you this sari,’ her mother said with a smile,
showing her the garment.
‘She should know I don’t wear saris, I’m too young for
that,’ Parminder replied, looking woefully at the proud
Kuldip, who was busy checking the time as if he had an
important appointment.
They were eating breakfast by the time Sukhwinder’s
brother Major dropped in to say goodbye the next morning.
As he entered, his eyes fell on the framed portraits of
Parminder and Kuldip which sat on the television set. He
apologized to his sister for not being able to see her off at the
airport. He had to go to work on the early morning shift at the
sawmill. Sukhwinder had then phoned Pradeep to ask her
help once more, because the luggage wouldn’t fit in the back
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