Paul Waldie

From Friday's Globe and Mail Published on Thursday, Apr. 22, 2010 8:48PM EDT Last updated on Thursday, Apr. 22, 2010 8:52PM EDT

It has taken nearly 25 years, but the families of the victims of the Air India bombing are about to finally get some answers as to what happened, and why.

A federal commission of inquiry into the Air India massacre will release its final report in June, just in time for the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attack that killed 329 people.

A federal tender for printing the report was issued Thursday, indicating that it will be printed by June 4. Commission spokesman Michael Tansey confirmed the report will come out in June and that a specific date will be announced soon.

For many families, the wait has been agonizing and the report is long overdue. The bombing occurred on June 23, 1985, as Air India flight 182 was over the Atlantic Ocean en route from Montreal to London and New Delhi. Two others died in a related bombing at Tokyo’s Narita Airport.

Those responsible for the bombing have never been found. Inderjit Singh Reyat was the only person convicted in the case, after he admitted to supplying bomb parts. Two others, Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, were acquitted in 2005 on murder charges related to the bombing.

Families of the victims spent 21 years trying to convince the federal government to hold an inquiry into the attack. That finally happened in 2006 and the commission, headed by former Supreme Court justice John Major, spent nearly two years hearing from more than 200 witnesses and reviewing 17,000 classified documents.

The public hearings wrapped up in February, 2008. But other issues surfaced last year when more documents turned up raising questions about Transport Canada’s security measures at the time and suggesting the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was hindered in its efforts by a bureaucratic “quagmire.”

“It has been quite frustrating,” said Bal Gupta, a Toronto-area resident whose wife died in the disaster. Mr. Gupta said the report should have been made public long before the 25th anniversary. “We are hoping for the best, but let’s wait and see.”

The final report will be extensive, consisting of five volumes spanning more than 3,100 pages in total, according to the tender document. The commission also plans to publish four volumes of “research papers,” totalling 1,300 pages. Up to 3,100 copies of the report will be printed, the tender said.

Jacques Shore, an Ottawa lawyer who represents the victims’ families, said family members had always hoped the report would come out before the 25th anniversary.

Many families are looking for “closure that they’ve never had,” Mr. Shore said. For others, he added, the report will be “a reflection on issues that had never been properly addressed in the past and finally had been dealt with in the context of the inquiry.”