Vancouver: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday visited a gurudwara and a temple in Vancouver in the final leg of this three-day visit to Canada which ends on Friday.
Later, the Prime Minister is scheduled to attend an official dinner hosted by his Canadian counterpart Stephen Harper, before departing for India.
With their heads covered with a cloth – customary before entering a gurudwara –Modi and Prime Minister Harper offered prayers at the Gurudwara Khalsa Diwan. Later, both visited the Laxmi Narain Temple where Modi received a rousing reception.
Saying that he was honoured to host one of the world’s great leaders, Harper said India and Canada were “natural partners”.
On Thursday, Modi, accompanied by Prime Minister Harper, visited the memorial in Toronto for the victims of Air India Flight 182 that was bombed in 1985, killing all 329 people on board. 268 of them were Canadian citizens, mostly of Indian descent. There were 24 Indian and 27 Britons as well.
“PM @narendramodi and @pmharper at the Air India memorial,” Syed Akbaruddin, spokesperson of the external affairs ministry, tweeted.
Air India Flight 182, a Boeing 747 named “Kanishka”, flying on the Montreal-London-New Delhi route on June 23, 1985, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean after being bombed while in Irish airspace.
Modi, along with Harper, interacted with the relatives of the victims who had gathered at the memorial.
Earlier, Modi held a roundtable with top executives at Canada’s largest banks, insurers and pension funds in Toronto, stressing that his government was focused on reducing bureaucracy and investment hurdles, adding it would welcome investments in infrastructure projects.
(With inputs from agencies)