The story so far: Ripudaman Singh Malik, a suspect who was later acquitted of all charges in the 1985 bombing of the Air India Kanishka aircraft flying the Montreal-London-Delhi-Mumbai route, , was shot dead in Canada on Thursday. He died on the spot, according to sources.
Malik was acquitted by a Canadian court in 2005.
What happened in 1985?
The Air India Kanishka bombing on June 23, 1985 is counted among the deadliest acts of terrorism in aviation history. All 329 people on board the flight were killed when a bomb in the aircraft exploded mid-air and it crashed near the west coast of Ireland. The aircraft had left from Montreal for London en route New Delhi.
Of the 329 people, 22 were Indian citizens, while most other passengers were foreign nationals of Indian origin.
Around the same time, a second bomb exploded at Narita Airport in Japan. It was hidden in a piece of luggage and exploded while it was being transferred to an Air India flight. Two baggage handlers were killed in the incident.
The bombings were believed to be a retaliation for India’s Operation Blue Star in June 1984, where security forces stormed the Golden Temple in Amritsar, one of the holiest sites for Sikhs, in order to remove Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and other Sikh militants holed up inside. Parts of the temple were desecrated in the process.
Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated in October 1984 by her Sikh bodyguards, allegedly to avenge the desecration of the Golden Temple.
Punjab was going through the peak of an insurgency movement when the Air India flight was bombed. It was initially traced to Babbar Khalsa International, a Vancouver-based terrorist group that advocates for the formation of Khalistan, an independent country for Sikhs.
The main accused
Apart from Malik, Talwinder Singh Parmar, Inderjit Singh Reyat, and Ajaib Singh Bagri were the primary accused in the blast case. Parmar was the co-founder and a well-known leader of the Babbar Khalsa. Interestingly, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) agents had requested to surveil Parmar in April 1985. Rajiv Gandhi was scheduled to visit the United Nations in New York in June that year and there were concerns that Khalistan separatistsmay use it as an opportunity to stage an attack.
On June 4, 1985, CSIS surveillance teams followed Parmar as he picked up his friend Reyat in Duncan town. One more unidentified person was in the car. The three drove to the woods and there CSIS agents Larry Lowe and Lynne Jarrett heard a loud blast. Retired Supreme Court judge John Major, who led a public inquiry in the matter, later revealed that the agents thought they heard a shotgun blast but they had actually heard an “explosion intended to test the detonation system for the bombs Parmar was building”.
The team did not receive permission to tail the unidentified person in the car. Parmar’s surveillance was lifted on June 16, 1985, just days before the blast took place. Investigations also revealed further negligence and incompetence on part of the Canadian authorities.
James Bartleman, then Director-General of the Intelligence and Security Bureau of the CSIS external affairs division, told the Air India commission that he had seen secret information that “indicated that Flight 182 would be targeted.” On June 1, 1985, Air India's Mumbai office sent a warning message to the airline's offices, informing them about possible sabotage attempts by Sikh extremists by placing time/delay devices in aircraft or registered baggage. The information was reportedly passed on from Air India’s office in Montreal to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) who chose not to forward it either to CSIS or the internal department responsible for assessing threats.
Charges against Parmar were soon dropped due to a lack of evidence. In 1992, he was shot dead by Punjab Police near Amritsar.
Reyat pleaded guilty to a manslaughter charge and was sentenced to five years in prison. He also received a separate sentence for his role in planting the second explosive at Narita airport. He testified against Malik and Bagri.
At the time, Malik controlled the Khalsa Credit Union, a 16,000-member body, and the Satnam Education Trust, which ran two Khalsa schools. He reportedly owned real estate worth $10 million as well as other assets.
Reyat testified that Parmar asked him to collect bomb-making material but that he didn’t know what the explosive device would be used for, and didn’t ask any questions. He also testified that Parmar wanted the bomb to blow up “something heavy” in India and that he agreed to help him because he was upset with the Indian government’s treatment of Sikhs.
Malik and Bagri were cleared of charges during their trials and acquitted in 2005. “Justice is not achieved, however, if persons are convicted on anything less than the requisite standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Despite what appear to have been the best and most earnest of efforts by the police and the Crown, the evidence has fallen markedly short of that standard,” Justice I.B. Josephson wrote in the judgment for Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri.
In 2006, Reyat was charged with perjury for lying under oath during his testimony in the trial against Malik and Bagri. He was eventually released from prison in 2016.
