With India-Canada relations souring over the Khalistan issue, a lot of old wounds are resurfacing. Wounds that haven’t healed, such as the trauma faced by the family members of those who tragically died in the bombing of Air india Kanishka flight 182 in June 1985 by Khalistani terrorists.
Our Buzz by the Bay guest this week lost his entire family — father, step-mother and three-year-old sister — in the Kanishka crash when he was just a teenager. It changed the course of his life and he went on to be employed by Air India.
Thirty-eight-years later, he has authored a trilogy titled On Angels Wings. The multi-hyphenate (he is an airline veteran, a trade union leader, lawyer, author and life coach) Sanjay Lazar shares his tale of resilience.
Excerpts from the interview:
Will book, On Angels Wings, be released soon?
Next month November — it’s a trilogy. This is the first of the series. It deals with the incidents of 1985, the bombing, the conspiracy, my entire life how it changed. How I joined Air India and now the current Indo-Canadian relationship, which are at an all time low.
Tension between India and Canada is escalating and that must bring up some very painful memories for you... Kanishka bombing was the worst aviation attack till 9/11. What prompted you to write this book after 38 years?
Yes, the current events have reopened old wounds. Actually those wounds never healed. None of the 329 families ever got closure. No one was held guilty or accountable. No one was sentenced to life imprisonment or death. We never really felt that justice was done. I actually started writing this book much before the current Indo-Canadian scenario.
All through the last 38 years I felt there was a story that wasn’t told. And it wasn’t my story. It was the story of their sacrifice. Until today there’s never been a book written about this in India and even in Canada the narrative has changed. It’s faded away. There were too many attempts in the last few years of radicals rewriting history, to make those who perpetrated such a grave crime, heroes.
How old were you when this tragedy took place? Can you recount the events?
I was just about 17 years old and had just finished my 12th standard exams. Ironically, two days before they left I received my results and I failed. They didn’t want to go, specially my stepmother Sylvia. But the trip had been planned with the entire set of Air India Crew, all our family friends. It was an entire support system we lost. My father was an Inflight Supervisor with Air India.
I distinctly remember it like it was yesterday. It was a Sunday. I was at home. I got a call out of the blue from our family friends who also worked with Air India. They wanted to know how I was and if they could come and see me. And I said that’s strange. They were my sister’s God Parents. Ivan and Celia. He came and took me and I flew with him to London. It was only on the way there that I realised that something sinister had happened. That Sunday changed my life forever.
Can you tell us about the immediate aftermath?
A day after we reached London we left for Cork, Ireland, because it was the nearest city to the crash site. That was where the ships had come in after retrieving bodies and parts of the Air Craft. By the time we flew there, Air India had already assembled a team, Interpol had come there, so had Scotland Yard.
All the investigative agencies were there. They had set up a victim identification squad. Here, I am 17-years-old and didn’t know what’s happening. I would go back to the hotel room every single night and cry because I didn’t know what else to do.
On the last day before The RAF (Royal Air Force) and the Royal Navy wound up the search... I found out that body number 131 was my stepmother Sylvia.
Watch the full interview on Buzz by the Bay on FPJ’s YouTube channel
