Air India Flight 182: Canada identifies key suspect after 40 years

Hindustan Times

7 hours ago

Toronto: Nearly 40 years after the bombing of Air India flight 182, the Kanishka, by pro-Khalistan extremists, Canadian law enforcement has finally identified a mysterious suspect who was linked to the terror attack. However, in another milestone in the travesty of an investigation, police have refused to name that person, who will never face charges as he is now dead. A Canadian flag in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. (Bloomberg)
The outlet Vancouver Sun reported on Friday that the suspect who know as Mr X has been identified by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or RCMP investigators. However, RCMP's Assistant Commissioner David Teboul told the outlet that privacy laws prevented them from identifying the person who was with mastermind Talwinder Singh Parmar and bomb-maker Inderjit Singh Reyat when they tested an explosive in the woods in Duncan, British Columbia, prior to the attack.
While the RCMP has maintained that the investigation into the Khalistani terror attack remains ongoing, Teboul conceded 'there's very little realistic chance of seeing this matter go to another trial.'
This adds another footnote to the inglorious blundering of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service or CSIS, which did little to prevent the attack and in fact destroyed evidence, and the RCMP, which could only secure a single conviction, that of Reyat, in what remains the worst incident of terror in Canadian history.
On June 23, 1985, the Kanishka exploded off the coast of Ireland due to a bomb planted there. Police have yet to even identify the person who booked the luggage with the incendiary device on to that flight and a second Air India flight. The second bomb claimed the lives of two Japanese baggage handlers at Narita Airport, bringing the total deaths in the terror plot to 331.
Reacting to the identification of Mr X, former West Vancouver police chief Kash Heed said, 'This is the disdain I have for how this investigation has unfolded over the last 40 years. It adds to the frustration that the families and communities have gone through.'
He asked, 'Would the treatment have been the same if the skin colour of the victims had been different? Do we still have information under wraps?'
As to the statement that of there being another trial, Heed, also a former Solicitor General in British Columbia, said, 'From my perspective, you will see very limited resources ever applied to the investigation again.'
Teboul was part of a Canadian delegation to Ahakista in Ireland where the first memorial to the terror attack was established in 1986. That official delegation is being led by Minister of Public Safety Gary Anandasangaree. Irish Taoiseach or PM Micheál Martin will lead a service at the memorial on the anniversary on Monday and Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri will be present, leading an Indian delegation.
Retired Supreme Court Justice John Major headed a Commission of Inquiry into the tragedy. In his report, submitted in 2010, he wrote, 'This remains the largest mass murder in Canadian history, and was the result of a cascading series of errors.'
As Edmonton-based Meera Nair, who lost friends in the tragedy, commented, 'What does it say about our values, that our worst brush with terrorism, the bombing of Air India Flight 182 on 23 June 1985 with the loss of all 329 people aboard, was allowed to happen? India had provided evidence of impending terrorism by Khalistani-extremists and had identified AI 182 as a target. But Indian concerns were crassly dismissed. That act of terrorism was our national introduction to Khalistan.'
As the Canadian establishment including its media continue to normalise the movement responsible for the country's worst terror attack, it remains evident few lessons have been learnt in the country where the mastermind lived, planned and operationalised it.