Two held for shooting Sikh man in Canada
POLICE SAY NO EVIDENCE FOUND TO LINK MALIK’S KILLING TO HIS ACQUITTAL IN AIR INDIA BOMBING
CANADIAN police arrested and charged two men with the murder of Ripudaman Singh Malik, a Sikh businessman who was acquitted in connection with the 1985 Air India bombing that killed 329 people.
Police found Malik with gunshot wounds before he died in Surrey, British Columbia, on July 14. Malik was shot while sitting in his car at a Surrey business complex, of which he was the strata president. A suspect vehicle was found on fire nearby, according to the the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).
Police said at the time that they had not established a motive for Malik’s killing nor found evidence to suggest whether the killing was connected to the airline attack, though the shooting appeared to be targeted.
The RCMP’s homicide investigation team said last Wednesday (27) they had charged 21-yearold Tanner Fox and 23-year-old Jose Lopez with the first-degree murder of Malik. The two men’s lawyers could not immediately be found to seek comment.
Fox, who grew up in Abbotsford, and Lopez, of New Westminster, both appeared in Surrey provincial court last Wednesday (27) and were remanded in custody until their next court date on August 10.
Malik’s son, Jaspreet Singh Malik, said his family took the news with mixed emotions.
“No matter where the investigation goes and no matter how these charges turn out, we have lost a great man,” said Jaspreet. “We are glad the IHIT team [Integrated Homicide Investigation Team] made progress and we support the work they’re doing. At the same time, we are saddened that these two young men made such poor life choices. We trust the justice system to deal with them properly and fairly,” he said.
Malik and co-accused Ajaib Singh Bagri, a sawmill worker in British Columbia, were acquitted in 2005 of charges related to the attack on Air India Flight 182, which exploded over the Atlantic Ocean in 1985 in one of history’s deadliest bombings of a commercial airliner. They were also acquitted of charges related to the killing of two baggage handlers who died when a suitcase bomb, alleged by police as designed to destroy another Air India jet over the Pacific Ocean, exploded in Japan’s Narita airport.
Canadian police were criticised for their investigation of the attack. The government apologised in 2010 to families of the victims, saying authorities failed to act on information that could have prevented the attack or catch those responsible.
Canadian and Indian police have long alleged the Air India bombing was conducted by Sikh extremists living in Canada as revenge on India for the deadly 1984 assault on the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Sikhism’s holiest shrine. The raid on the Golden Temple, which the government said was aimed at flushing out Sikh separatists demanding a nation, was a bloody episode that angered Sikhs around the world; they accused the Indian army of desecration.