Toronto: Families of the Air India bombing victims were overcome with emotion on Friday at a groundbreaking ceremony for a new memorial to be built on the shores of Lake Ontario.
Twenty-one years after the bombing, the ceremony marked the beginning of construction on a memorial to honour the 329 victims, including 280 Canadians, who died when A-I Flight 182 was downed by a terrorist bomb on June 23, 1985 near the Irish coast.
Jayashree Thampi, who represents the victims' families, said she hoped the memorial, along with others planned in Montreal and Vancouver, would allow "all Canadians ... to visit and reflect and remember all the innocent people who lost life in this terrible tragedy."
The Toronto memorial is the first of its kind in Canada for the Air India bombing victims, although there are commemorative plaques honoring the victims at Ontario's legislature in Toronto and in Ottawa. It is slated to be finished in a year.
All levels of government were involved, and their support made working on the project "extremely satisfying and comforting," said Thampi, who lost her husband and daughter in the attack.
Based on the design of the Air India memorial in Ahakista, Ireland, a wall with the names of the victims will stand behind a sundial on a small hillside at Toronto's Humber Bay East Park.
The ceremony comes on the heels of the formal start of a judicial inquiry into the bombing, which began on Wednesday, and is expected to take a year to complete.
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