Man acquitted in Air India bombing allowed to visit birth country
A B.C. man acquitted in the 1985 Air India bombing has finally been allowed to travel to India after decades of being on a no-fly list.
Ripudaman Singh Malik’s visit to his birth country has been featured in India media in recent days.
In March 2005, Malik, along with Ajaib Singh Bagri, was acquitted in the June 23, 1985 terrorism attack against India’s national airline that left 331 dead.
Two bomb-laden suitcases were checked in at Vancouver Airport and tagged for Air India flights heading in opposite directions around the globe. One exploded at Tokyo’s Narita Airport, killing two baggage handlers. The second blew up aboard Air India Flight 182 in the air, killing all 329 aboard.
Evidence at Malik’s and Bagri’s trial pointed to a conspiracy by B.C. Sikh separatists to retaliate for the Indian government’s attack in June 1984 on the Golden Temple, Sikhism’s holiest shrine.
The only man convicted in the bombing plot, Inderjit Singh Reyat, was later found guilty of perjury for lying at Malik’s and Bagri’s trial.
Despite his acquittal 14 years ago, Malik, now 72, was unable to get a visa to return to India, where The Vancouver Sun interviewed his extended family in 2003.
But in September, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi removed 312 names of Sikhs living abroad from the 35-year-old blacklist. Only two names remain.
Leaders of the Babbar Khalsa, Dal Khalsa and other groups banned as terrorists in India have been returning from the U.K., Germany, France and North America.
Former Liberal MLA Dave Hayer, whose journalist father was murdered after agreeing to be an Air India witness, said Monday that he is surprised by India’s reversal on former militants and extremists returning to the country. And he said it is too bad Malik would not first provide Canadian investigators with information about his former associates that might aid ongoing cases.
“He likely has a lot of other knowledge of all these other people who he was associated with,” Hayer said. “He should be providing that information to police and our justice system so other people can be held accountable.”
Reyat’s wife once worked at Surrey’s Khalsa School, which Malik started, while she also collected welfare. She was later convicted of fraud. The Air India mastermind, Talwinder Singh Parmar, also had two relatives working at the school. Parmar was killed in Indian custody in 1992, years before Air India charges were laid in Canada.
“Our family is waiting for justice to be done in my dad’s case,” Hayer said.
Toronto journalist Balraj Singh Deol, editor of the Punjabi weekly Khabarnama, said he fears Modi is placating the former international Khalistani leaders in an attempt to win state elections in Punjab.
By doing so, he could reignite support for their movement and the violence associated with it, Deol said.
“All the indications are that BJP is trying to win over some of these Khalistanis,” he said.
“They are plotting to grab power in Punjab.”
But the pro-Khalistan Justice for Sikhs is also disturbed by Malik’s return to India.
The group says Modi is trying to undermine its plans for an international referendum on Punjab independence in 2020.
“Instead of the stick, Prime Minister Modi and his agents are offering Sikh foreign nationals the carrot to once again visit family in India,” Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the group’s legal adviser, said in a news release.
“They’re playing on the emotions of people. They’ve replaced their blacklist with emotional blackmail. They welcome Malik home and hundreds of other aging Khalistani nationalists in hopes of creating cracks in our community.”