Dicing With Death

Ripudaman Singh Malik, a Canadian business man and Ajaib Singh Bagri (a mill worker), who were both accused of involvement in the 1985 Air India Kanishka bombing case ...

1985 Air India 182 Wreckage In Eire

.... were both acquitted in 2005 in controversial circumstances, after accusations that the Canadian police bungled the investigation.

Air India flight 182 from Canada to India, blew up off the Irish coast, killing all 329 people on board - mostly Canadian citizens visiting relatives in India, on 23 June 1985. At about the same time, a second bomb exploded prematurely in Japan, killing two baggage handlers. The bombings were widely believed to have been carried out by Canadian-based Sikhs, in direct retaliation for India's soldiers 1984 storming of the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine in the Sikh religion.

Talwinder Singh Parmar was regarded by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) as the mastermind of the Air India bombing, but was not charged though lack of evidence, and was later killed in a shoot out by police in India in 1992. While another suspect Inderjit Singh Reyat (the bomb maker), was later convicted, only after he pleaded guilty to manslaughter in connection with the Air India bombing. But was sentenced to only five years in prison ... which considering that was the 'manslaughter' of 329 passengers and two Japanese citizens, seems a remarkably light sentence (which has never been explained) ....

Mr Malik And Co-accused Ajaib Singh Bagri

Mr Malik and another co-accused Ajaib Singh Bagri were eventually arrested, accused of planting the bombs on board the planes. The trials failed because the evidence was based mainly on claims that the accused had 'privately confessed' to involvement in the bombing i.e. hearsay, and found to be unreliable, as most of these 'witnesses' were shown in court to have ulterior motives - this after the Canadian secret service had wiped the phone tapping tapes of the suspects, rather than risk losing an informant by handing the tapes over to the RCMP. Also a prosecution witness, Sikh publisher, Tara Singh Hayer, was killed at his home in November 1998, after he had already been paralysed in an earlier attempt on his life. So both men were acquitted in 2005, to outrage from the victims families.

Mr Malik was the founder of the Khalsa Credit Union and Khalsa school, and the proposed Khalsa College, but was one of the 312 Sikhs living abroad who had been barred from entering India, for their alleged anti-India activities. However he was inexplicably removed from the blacklist in September 2019, and later made statements praising Indian Premier Mr Modi. However "Malik had fallen out of favour with certain organisations in Canada and remained in the news for provoking them on different occasions,” a Calgary-based journalist said. 

He had been linked with the controversial printing of the Sri Guru Granth Sahib (the holy scripture of Sikhism), outside of Amritsar India, in direct contravention of a religious edict, as official versions of the Sri Guru Granth Sahib are only produced in Amritsar by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC). The SGPC printers are the only authorised worldwide publisher of the scripture. Mr Malik said he had obtaining written permission from the SGPC but they said the permission was later revoked. Sources also said Malik has had a number of personal disputes with other Sikh individuals over the years .... so basically he was a bit of a chancer to put it politely. He certainly had made enemies.

Ripudaman Singh Malik Assassinated In His Car

In July 2022 Malik was found shot dead in his car in Surrey, British Columbia, and police found a burnt-out vehicle nearby. Canadian police have said they are still working to determine the motive behind the targeted killing of Mr Malik. It looks like they will have plenty of possibilities to choose from:

• 329 Air India air bombing victims relatives or friends.
• The extremist Canadian Sikhs who thought he had printed holy scripture illegally such as the Khalistanis (The Sikh separatist movement who the Indian government claim are backed by Pakistan), who had threatened a Sikh Jathedar, Akal Takht Jathedar, who was going to open Malik's Khalsa College.
• The Sikhs who had reviled Malik in the Guru Nanak Sikh Temple’s in Surrey, British Columbia, for an hour calling him “kaum da gaddaar”, “Indian agent” etc for his praise of Indian Premier Modi.
• Those who printed and distributed pamphlets against Malik in the Surrey area.
• The friends or family of Tara Singh Hayer.
• Anyone else he had crossed in business.
• Even the Indian government.

If I was Ajaib Singh Bagri, his co-accused in the 1985 Air Bombing I wouldn't be sleeping too easily, given the lack of arrests or convictions in the terrorist bombings, murder of Tara Singh Hayer, and threats to the Sikh Jathedar, 

The Mounties are not covering themselves in glory in their handling of these Sikh community crimes.