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Canadian police arrest 2 men for 1985 Kanishka bombing

On Friday, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested Ajaib Singh Bagri and Ripudaman Singh Malik, the president of a small Vancouver bank, in connection with the bombing.

An official of the Indian consulate in Vancouver said Malik and Bagri were charged with, among other things, first-degree murder and criminal conspiracy. Bagri and Malik are also accused of a related bomb accident that killed two men at Tokyo's Narita airport 54 minutes before the Kanishka blew up.

The bombings were thought to be intended, in part, to avenge the Indian Army's 1984 storming of the Golden Temple.

Authorities have said they believe both bombs were put together in British Columbia and placed in luggage put on planes in Vancouver.

The western Canadian province has a large Sikh community, which at the time of the bombings included supporters of the terrorist outfit, Babbar Khalsa.

Canadian investigators believe the Narita bomb was supposed to destroy an Air-India flight from Tokyo to Bangkok, but blew up accidentally when it was being transferred from another aircraft.

More arrests are expected, police said. "We spent the last 15 years collecting evidence so that all of the charges will be supported," Constable Cate Galliford of the RCMP told reporters.

Defending the 15-year hiatus between the incident and the first arrests, she said the Kanishka bombing was probably the most complex investigation ever handled by the RCMP. The investigation was complicated by the number of countries that had to be covered and the number of witnesses that had to be interviewed.

Malik, 53, a wealthy Vancouver businessman and member of the Babbar Khalsa, is believed to have helped fund the bombings. He was reportedly preparing to flee to Pakistan at the time of his arrest.

Bagri, 51, a Kamloops, British Columbia, resident, is believed to have been a key aide of Talwinder Singh Parmar, a leader of the Babbar Khalsa, who was shot dead by police in India in 1992.

Police said the men conspired with Parmar and Inderjit Singh Reyat to carry out the bombings. Reyat was convicted of manslaughter by Canada in 1991 for making the Narita bomb.

Reyat and Parmar were named as unindicted co-conspirators on Friday for the Kanishka bombing.

Bagri was also charged on Friday with the 1988 attempted murder of Tara Singh Hayer, a Canadian Sikh journalist who had been outspoken against the Kanishka bombing.

Relatives of the victims said they were caught by surprise by the arrests, but said they had remained hopeful that charges would eventually be filed.

"Obviously there is a sense of relief, but this is only the first step. We just have our fingers crossed," said Eddie Madon of North Vancouver, whose father, Sam Madon, was killed in the crash.

A spokesman for the Indian high commission in Ottawa declined to comment on the investigation.

In New Delhi, official sources said, "The investigation is being carried out by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and no investigating agency in India is in any way involved with the process. We will wait for the completion of the probe by the Canadian authorities before deciding on the future course of action."

Asked whether India would demand the extradition of Bagri and Malik, they said there was no question of this "at present" as no proceeding was pending against them in India.

About any coordination between the two governments in the investigation, they said a couple of years ago, a delegation of the Canadian investigators had come to India to interrogate a few persons. But since then, no cooperation had been sought by Canada.

UNI

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