Third Suspect Nabbed in Air India Bombing
V A N C O U V ER, Canada, Oct. 30, 2000 -- — A third suspect has been arrested in the alleged Sikh terrorist conspiracy behind the 1985 bombing of Air India Flight 182, which left 329 dead.
Hardial Singh Johal, believed to be one of the key organizers of the plot,was arrested late Sunday in the Vancouver area by a team of officers fromthe Royal Canadian Mounted Police Air Disaster Task Force investigating theJune 23, 1985 bombing — the deadliest case of aviation sabotage in history.
Sources tell ABCNEWS at least four more suspects will likely be arrestedover the next few days as the roundup continues.
Johal, a Vancouver school janitor and a former president of the VancouverSikh Temple, was suspected since 1985 when his former telephone numberturned up on the tickets booked for two terrorists who checked in the bags.Witnesses have told the Royal Canadian Mounted Police they saw Johal, 54, atVancouver International Airport as the bag for Air India Flight 182 wasbeing checked in.
Johal is expected to be charged with numerous counts relating to theconspiracy.
Police are also expected to charge suspected bomb-maker Inderjit Singh Reyat, already imprisoned after a related bombing conviction, as soon as a legal complication is resolved — probably within the next few days, sources tell ABCNEWS.
The bomb, planted in a suitcase boarded in Vancouver the day before the disaster, ripped open the Boeing 747 as it cruised at 31,000 feet southwest of Ireland. One hour earlier, another bomb that also originated in Vancouver exploded prematurely at Tokyo’s Narita Airport, killing Japanese baggage handlers Hideo Asano and Hideharu Koda.
Authorities say the bag was supposed to blow up aboard Air India Flight 301, which was waiting to take off from Tokyo for Bangkok.
Wave of Arrests in 15-Year-Old Case
On Friday, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police scooped up Sikh priest Ajaib Singh Bagri, 53, from Kamloops, British Columbia, and Vancouver multimillionaire Sikh fundamentalist Ripudaman Singh Malik, 51, in the 15-year-old investigation into both incidents.
Bagri and Malik were charged with 331 counts of murder — the most ever laid in Canadian criminal history — and conspiracy to kill more than 500 aboard the two flights.
The Mounties moved in on the third suspect, who is believed to have been present at Vancouver International Airport as Sikh militants loaded the two bags containing dynamite-powered time-bombs. He is to be charged today.
ABCNEWS has also learned that Canadian authorities have launched an international manhunt for another Sikh suspect, who skipped town 45 days ago. They believe the man is holed up in Pakistan, and are to ask authorities in Islamabad to help track him down.
New Charges for Mechanic
RCMP are making preparations to charge Reyat, 48, with making the bomb that destroyed Air India Flight 182. Reyat was sentenced in 1991 to life in prison with no parole for 10 years for making the Tokyo bomb.
Reyat, an auto-mechanic from Duncan, British Columbia, originally fled to England before he could be charged. In 1989, he was apprehended and extradited to Canada. Now, sources tell ABCNEWS, Canadian police plan to ask the British Home Office to waive renewed extradition proceedings, paving the way for the new charges.
His lawyer, Kuldip Chagar, told ABCNEWS Reyat might fight attempts to press new charges because extradition laws require that a person be charged only on the specified offences he was sent back to face. But experts say the waiver would allow for the charges to be filed.
Reyat is currently in a maximum-security jail in British Columbia.
Arrested at School
Malik, a member of a Sikh fundamentalist group, was arrested at a private Sikh school he runs in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey.Shortly after his arrest, agitated supporters struck news cameramen, but the episode was quickly brought under control.
Both Malik and Bagri are believed to have been allies of Burnaby Sikh Talwinder Singh Parmar, the leader of the Babbar Khalsa, a militant Sikh group founded in Canada.
The decision to move against the two suspects on Friday, according to ABCNEWS sources, was made because of fears that the two men were preparing to flee. It became apparent that one man was about to board a flight for Pakistan, where Sikh terrorists have a major base.
Several others knowingly participated and played a peripheral role. They too may face charges, sources tell ABCNEWS.
History of Sikh Militants
The Babbar Khalsa is a militant group dedicated to the creation of a Sikh homeland called Khalistan in India’s Punjab state. It was founded by Parmar, a Vancouver sawmill worker, in 1978, and means “Tigers of True Faith.”
The Babbar Khalsa had vowed to avenge the Indian army’s June 6, 1984, assault on the holiest shrine of Sikhism, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, in the Indian state of Punjab. Police believe the plot to bomb the airliners was master minded by the group, under the leadership of Parmar. He fled Canada in 1988 to avoid arrest, and was later shot dead by Indian police in a gunfight in 1992.
Indira Gandhi, then India’s prime minister, was assassinated six months after the attack on the Golden Temple by her bodyguards, in revenge. Sikh militancy increased within the Sikh diaspora in various countries, with the formation of numerous groups who vowed to carve out an independent Khalistan in Punjab state in India.
A 10-year insurgency in the state of Punjab has cost tens of thousands of lives.
But by 1995, a Sikh insurgency had been brought under control by the systematic liquidation of the leadership of militant group by Indian authorities..
Salim Jiwa is a Vancouver-based reporter who files for ABCNEWS’ I-Team investigative unit.