Air India sticker shock
Thu, October 09 2008
The Historica Foundation, which encourages the teaching of Canadian history, had issued a calendar that marked the date of the arrests of Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri on October 27, 2000. The two Sikh men were arrested in connection with the 1985 Air India bombing conspiracy that left 329 people dead in a blast above the Irish Sea.
The bombing was blamed on Sikh separatists, who were seeking revenge for an “anti-terrorist” military operation that damaged the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine of the Sikhs in Amritsar, India in 1984. However, both men were acquitted in March 2005 due to lack of evidence.
Malik threatened Historica with legal action as it failed to mention that the two men were found not guilty by the B.C. Supreme Court.
Not only has the Historica Foundation apologized to Malik, but the B.C. Education Ministry is spending $55,000 to cover up the error.
Since the Education Ministry distributed these calendars through B.C.’s school boards, school principals are now being asked to deliver stickers stating that these men were acquitted to Grade 11 and 12 students to be affixed over the date of their arrests on the calendars.
The stickers’ cost have been paid by Historica, according to a Ministry of Education statement. But the government is also paying $1 per student to cover the mailing costs.
Malik claims that he is being persecuted, even though a court of law has acquitted him.
“When the judge has acquitted us, because of lack of reliable witnesses and short of evidence why they still believe that we are guilty?,” he explained to the South Asian Post.
The letter of apology sent to Malik by Ann Dadson, the Interim President of the Historica Foundation of Canada read: “In preparing the commemorative ‘British Columbia 150 Years’ 2008 calendar, specifically the entry for October 27, Historica failed to include the fact that, on March 16, 2005, you and Ajaib Singh Bagri were found not guilty and acquitted of all charges laid in 2000.”
The letter further stated that, “Historica sincerely regrets its omission and unreservedly apologizes for any inconvenience caused to you or your reputation as a result.”
Historica spokesperson Christina Lanteigne refused to comment on the issue.
“We are not making any comment other than the apology we have already made,” she said.
The Air India Victims’ Families Association leader Bal Gupta did not return calls to the South Asian Post.
Gupta lost his wife Ramwati in the bombing. Major Singh Sidhu, who was one of the organizers of the Air India victims’ memorial service in Vancouver this year, also declined to comment.
He lost his sister, a nephew and a niece in the bombing.
“What can we say?,” he wondered when asked for the reaction of the victims’ families to the sticker snafu.
The education critic in the shadow cabinet of the opposition NDP, Norm McDonald, described this whole exercise as mismanagement.
“Why wouldn’t the ministry be sure about the content of the calendar before sending it to the students?”
He said that the $55,000 being sent to school principals is a waste of time and money.
“This cost could buy you a teacher or class room resources,” he explained. “The students won’t take out time to fix these stickers on a calendar that was sent to them about a year ago.”
In a statement sent to the South Asian Post, the Ministry of Education admitted that last month it had sent out corrective stickers and letters of explanation to all B.C. Boards of Education and independent school authorities.
The statement explained that the Ministry agreed to distribute the stickers to schools since it had originally distributed the calendar, along with other project partners.
“The Ministry has done this to ensure that B.C. students are provided with the correct information,” the statement said.
However, the B.C. Teachers’ Federation disagreed.
The second vice president of the BCTF, Jim Iker, said that this is another example of a mistake committed by government that ultimately wasted money on sticker, money which could have been used on classroom resources.
By Gurpreet Singh
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