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Guilty Until Proven Innocent?

By PUNEET SINGH LAMBA
Letter to the editor.

National Post, Chelmsford, Massachusetts, Feb. 12, 2003



"Re: Sikh Separatism that Generated Air Disaster Now a Moribund Cause, Feb. 11 [By CHRIS WATTIE]."
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"It is important to note that claims such as 'Sikh extremists blew up Air-India Flight 182 in 1985' [are] merely echoing popular conjecture."
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"On Monday, Inderjit Singh Reyat pleaded guilty to manslaughter for supplying materials for the construction of a bomb not intended to kill anyone. Tragically, however, the bomb ended up on Air-India Flight 182."
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"Most importantly, the largest and most expensive trial in Canadian history has so far been unable to identify the perpetrators of the more serious crimes - the actual construction and placement of the bomb on the ill-fated flight."
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"In fact, the marathon case around the largest mass murder in Canadian history has been fraught with dubious inconsistencies. Quite incomprehensibly, for example, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service [C.S.I.S.] erased scores of surveillance tapes, thereby withholding potentially crucial evidence from the R.C.M.P."
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"As tempting as it might be, it is premature to make blanket statements that pin the blame squarely on 'Sikh extremists' until this case is finally resolved."
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