Thursday, March 17 2005 09:24 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Vancouver (Canada): Loved ones of 329 people killed when a blast ripped through an Air India jet off the Irish coast in 1985, plunged into fresh agony yesterday (Mar 16, 2005), after two Sikhs accused of the attack were acquitted.

Gasps filled a courtroom in the western Canadian city of Vancouver and some witnesses burst into tears as Justice Ian Bruce Josephson ruled that Ajaib Singh Bagri and Ripudaman Singh Malik had not downed the jet.

"I can't believe it, I can't believe it," one man cried in court as the judgement, which stunned some long-term observers of the trial, was handed down.

Another man, Rattan Singh Kalsi, who lost his daughter in the tragedy on June 23, 1985, was crying along with his wife.

"They should not have brought the case to court. We were suffering but now we are suffering more," he said, outside the British Columbia Supreme Court.

Martine Donahue, a reservations agent when the jet left Canada on its fateful flight to London, and onward journey to India, was also despairing.

"How can you fight the law, they have so many tricks in their bag. It was an almost impossible trial, it was just people talking against people."

Rumi Shross, who lost a friend in the disaster, said he was speechless at the verdict. "I have no words to describe it, how difficult it is," he told CBC television.

"I lost a very dear friend 20 years ago, my mind is totally blank ... 329 innocent lives were lost."

The judgements came after a 20-year investigation into the world's worst airborne terror strike prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Malik and Bagri, orthodox Sikhs who immigrated to Canada from Punjab, were accused of conspiring to plant suitcase bombs on two aircraft.