PM remembers Kanishka bombing victims

Recalling the "tragic event" of bombing of the Air India Kanishka flight from Toronto to Delhi in June 1985, killing all 329 people on board, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Monday people need to "work earnestly to rid the world of terrorism".

Recalling the "tragic event" of bombing of the Air India Kanishka flight from Toronto to Delhi in June 1985, killing all 329 people on board, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Monday that people need to "work earnestly to rid the world of terrorism".

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"On the eve of the 24th anniversary of that tragic event, as we honour the memory of the innocent victims of this grim tragedy, the best homage we can pay to them is to work earnestly to rid the world of the scourge of terrorism," Manmohan Singh said in a statement in New Delhi.

"On this sad day, my thoughts go out to all those who lost their loved ones in the crash," Manmohan Singh said.

The Air India Flight 182 operating on the Toronto-Montreal-London-Delhi-Bombay route was on June 23, 1985, blown up in midair by a bomb in Irish airspace.

The plane, named after Emperor Kanishka of the Kushanas, exploded at an altitude of 9,400 metres and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. In all, 329 people perished, among them 280 Canadians and 22 Indians.