Sikh acquitted of 1985 Air India bombing shot dead
CANADIAN POLICE APPEAL FOR INFORMATION AS THEY PROBE ‘TARGETED’ ATTACK
A SUSPECT who was acquitted in the 1985 Air India bombings that killed 329 people was shot dead last Thursday (14), in an apparent targeted shooting in westernmost Canada, local media reported.
Ripudaman Singh Malik, 75, a one-time supporter of the Sikh separatist Khalistan movement, was in 2005 acquitted in the Air India mass murder plot for lack of evidence.
He was reportedly shot outside his clothing business in the area of Vancouver, British Columbia.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) did not confirm the victim’s name, but said in a statement a man was found “suffering from gunshot wounds” and had “succumbed to his injuries (at the) scene.”
“This appears to be a targeted shooting,” said Constable Sarbjit Sangha, adding that a vehicle believed to have been driven by the shooters was located a few kilometres (miles) away “fully engulfed in fire”.
After setting the blaze, it was likely the shooters fled in another getaway vehicle that police are now searching for, she added.
“We understand this is a high-profile international story. However, we urge not to speculate as to the motive as our homicide investigators will be following the evidence,” RCMP Sergeant David Lee said at a news conference.
Lee, from the force’s homicide investigation team, said the killing is believed to be targeted. The authorities were seeking dash-cam footage or any other information the public might have on the incident.
The bombing on June 23, 1985, of Air India Flight 182 off the coast of Ireland that killed all 329 passengers and crew had been the deadliest act of airborne terrorism prior to the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
The flight, whose passengers included 268 Canadian citizens and 24 Indian citizens, took off from Toronto and had stopped in Montreal. From there it was en route to London and then onwards to its final destination Bombay (now Mumbai).
It was flying 31,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean when a suitcase bomb exploded in the front cargo, killing all on board.
The incident came as another bomb exploded at Japan’s Narita airport, killing two workers who were loading baggage onto an Air India flight. Both suitcase bombs were later traced back to Vancouver, home to a large Sikh immigrant population.
Canadian police were criticised for their investigation of the Air India attack, and the government formally apologised in 2010 to families of the victims, saying that authorities had failed to act on information that could have prevented the attack or caught those responsible.
Inderjit Singh Reyat is the only person to have been convicted in the plot, for making the bombs and for lying at the trials of fellow militants, one of whom was Malik.
Malik’s son, Jaspreet, posted a statement on social media about his father’s shooting.
“The media will always refer to him as someone charged with the Air India bombing,” he wrote on Facebook, according to ABC News. “The media and RCMP never seemed to accept the court’s decision, and I pray today’s tragedy is not related.”
A local media report said in recent years, Malik had served as chairman with a Khalsa
School and managed two private schools’ campuses in Surrey and Vancouver. He was also president of the Vancouver-based Khalsa Credit Union (KCU), which has more than 16,000 members.
Former British Columbia premier Ujjal Dosanjh, a former acquaintance of Malik’s, was quoted as saying about him, “One of the other complicating factors is he made a recent visit to India where he wrote a letter in support of [prime minister Narendra] Modi and his policies. I think that may have reverberated and had implications within the community”.
Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri were acquitted in 2005 in a verdict that prosecutors said would have been different if Reyat had told the truth on the stand.
Reyat was paroled in 2016 after serving two decades behind bars.
The attack took place during an Indian crackdown on Sikhs fighting for an independent homeland. Those behind it were reportedly seeking revenge for the storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar by Indian troops.