Leaders from Canada and Ireland are this week joining families of the victims of the 1985 Air India crash off the Irish coast for a memorial service to mark the 20th anniversary of the tragedy.
The Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin will join President Mary McAleese and around 180 family members at the ceremony in Ahakista, near Bantry, Co Cork, where there is a permanent memorial to the crash.
The Air India plane, which was flying from Toronto to London via Montreal, disappeared from radar screens just 45 minutes before it was due to land at Heathrow on June 23, 1985.
All 329 passengers and crew were killed as the Boeing 747 plunged into the sea from 30,000ft following the detonation of a bomb onboard.
Dr Bal Gupta, co-ordinator of the Air India Victims Families Association (AIVFA), who has visited the memorial in Co Cork more than a dozen times over the past 20 years, said this year's ceremony was very important.
“It's a process of coming to terms with it slowly,” he said.
“It's not easy for many people, for a person who lost all his family.” Dr Gupta, whose wife of 20 years was killed in the disaster, said the sundial memorial at Ahakista was a reminder of the tragedy which took place. “People who go there may search their souls, think how badly terrorism can affect the family, how it can be anybody and is not limited to any particular individual,” he said.
Dr Gupta said the families were “always grateful” for the empathy of locals in the area and recalled meeting a woman who came out of her house in Bandon to console relatives staying there in the aftermath of the tragedy.
“We always feel grateful for the compassion and understanding from them,” he said. Dr Gupta's son Susheel, who was 12 at the time of the bombing, will be attending the ceremony next Thursday in Ireland, while Dr Gupta will be at a memorial in Toronto.
Carl Schwenger, counsellor at the Canadian Embassy in Dublin, said around 178 relatives of the victims would be coming from Canada, India and Britain to attend the event, which is held every year in Ahakista.
“It's organised by the family members for themselves and for the wider community from Ahakista, Bantry and County Cork,” he said. “The community was extremely kind to the family members when it happened.”
The Canadian Prime Minister is set to be joined by the premier of British Columbia, Gordon Campbell, and the Minister of Health Ujall Dosanjh, as well as opposition ministers.
A delegation from the Canadian Mounted Police, led by Assistant Commissioner Gary Bass, will take part in the ceremony.
There will be a minute's silence and blessings from Hindu, Muslim, Catholic and Church of Ireland ministers. Representatives from the families of the victims will be joined by Mrs McAleese, Mr Martin and the Mayor of Cork in laying wreaths.
White balloons will be released and white lanterns lit and put into the sea as part of the memorial ceremony.
Former Ontario premier Bob Rae, who has been appointed as a liaison with the families of the victims, will also be in attendance.
He has been charged with the task of investigating whether there should be a public inquiry, following the acquittal of two men at a multi-million dollar trial in Vancouver in March.
A third man, Inderjit Singh Reyat, is serving five years in jail after pleading guilty to manslaughter in relation to the bombing. The explosion is thought to have been masterminded by Sikh extremist Talwinder Singh Parmar, from Vancouver, who was not prosecuted but died in a shoot-out with police in India in 1992.
The AIVFA met with Mr Martin last week and is calling for a public inquiry into the disaster and the subsequent investigation, as well as a permanent memorial to the tragedy in Canada.