About 1,000 Sikhs and their supporters attended a memorial service in Vancouver over the weekend to honour the hundreds of people killed in the 1984 raid on the Golden Temple in Amritar, India.
Perpinder Singh, an organizer of Saturday's event in Vancouver, says young Sikhs are trying to understand the history of their religion and want to remember the innocent people who were massacred.
"It's our attempt to remember the atrocities that happen in 1984 in the hopes that these kinds of atrocities don't happen again in any community," he said.
India's holiest Sikh shrine became a bloodbath as the government of then-prime minister Indira Gandhi stormed the temple, saying the action was necessary to root out militant separatists.
But Sikhs have maintained the government action was meant to cause the maximum number of casualties when about 1,200 Sikh pilgrims were gathered at the temple for an annual event.
Singh says the vigil's aim is to focus on human rights for all minorities because Christians, Muslims and other groups in India and around the world are targeted for their beliefs.
June also marks the 25th anniversary of the Air India bombing, the worst act of terrorism in Canadian history. A bomb in a suitcase downed flight 182 off Ireland, killing all 329 people aboard. Another bomb killed two baggage handlers in Japan.
The final report from a public inquiry into the bombing is expected this month as well, which could indicate why only one man, Inderjit Singh Reyat, was ever jailed.
With files from CTV British Columbia's Jon Woodward and The Canadian Press
