Kanishka bombing 1985, Nijjer killing 2023 and India-Canada relations

 

Kanishka bombing 1985, Nijjer killing 2023 and India-Canada relations

Ground Zero

Jagtar Singh

Chandigarh, June 23: Yet another spanner hit the India-Canada relationship when members of the Canada’s House of Commons on June 18 last stood up to pay tributes with one minute’s silence to Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on his first death anniversary.

India reacted very strongly with the call for memorial service “as a show of solidarity against terrorism” on June 23, the anniversary of the horrible bombing of Air India Kanishka in 1985 in which 329 people as the airliner exploded mid-air near the Irish coast. Of course, the Kanishka bombing anniversary must be observed to remind the posterity of this barbarity.

Years later, it came to be known that design was not to kill by targeting Kanishka but hit India economically. The design went disastrously wrong as the Air India 747 exploded mid-air.

The two developments, however, are both related and also un-related.

India’s problem with tributes paid to Nijjer in the House of Commons is that the government had declared him a “designated terrorist” wanted in India. He advocated Khalistan, an independent Sikh state on India’s soil, though peacefully, and was associated with Sikhs for Justice headed by Gurpatwant Singh Pannun based in USA who too is a designated terrorist  on India’s list.

Nijjer was gunned down outside Guru Nanak Mission Gurdawara  whose management he headed in Surrey in British Columbia on June 18, 2023. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau subsequently came up with “credible allegation” about the hand of Indian agencies in this daring murder.

Nijjer’s killing had its multiplier effect at the political level. The religio-political dynamics of Sikh Diaspora is now affecting India’s geo-politics at one level.

The issue here is that India seems to be trying to counter Canada with Kanishka bombing in which the involvement of Babbar activist Talwinder Singh Parmar and his associates had come up. At one level, this move amounts to targeting the Sikhs in Canada, not the Canadian government per se. India has taken the stand that Canada has been the fertile ground for Sikh radicals.

In this context, it is pertinent to recall in narrative of Kanishka bombing.

It came to be known years later when Parmar landed in Pakistan before he was killed in an encounter in India that the design was not to kill but hit India’s economy by attacking public sector Air India and the bomb was timed to explode after landing at Heathrow airport in UK. The plane got delayed about an hour and a half at Toronto from where it was to carry a spare engine of Boeing 747. The design went horribly wrong.

Here is one version from Parmar himself and related by those with him he had shared the details in Pakistan. This version is part of my book “Rivers on Fire: Khalistan Struggle”.

Excerpts:

Air India Kanishka Bombing One of the most tragic incidents associated with the Sikh struggle that caught global attention was the bombing of Air India Kanishka Flight 182 that exploded mid-air over the Atlantic Ocean near the Irish coast on the fateful June 23, 1985, killing all 329 people on aboard in the Boeing 747-237 B that was on the Toronto-Montreal-London-New Delhi route.

It emerged years later that the design was not to kill people but hit India’s economy by targeting this national carrier. India’s economy was to be strategically targeted under this design to avenge Operation Bluestar. The action went horribly wrong. The explosive device was timed to explode after the plane had landed in London. The tragedy was collateral damage.

It was an action carried out by the people associated with Babbar Khalsa International based in Canada on their own but not by this militant organization per se. At another level in the Sikh circles in Canada, this tragedy is perceived to be the operation of the Indian agencies to defame the Sikh struggle globally.

According to the information now available, this operation was master-minded by Talwinder Singh Parmar who was killed years later by the Punjab police. Parmar spent more than a year in hiding in the caves in the mountainous Frontier area of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan as the Canadian Sikh national of Indian origin, he came under the scanner and pressure of the global security agencies. This area has been known to be no man’s land for centuries.

Parmar was finally named in the report of public inquiry headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Johan Major released on June 17, 2010, but not conclusively. The Commission expressed the view that “Talwinder Singh Parmar was the leader of the Babbar Khalsa, a pro Khalistan organization at the heart of radical extremism, and it is now believed that he was the leader of the conspiracy to bomb Air India flights.”

All those arrested were subsequently acquitted by the court in the absence of concrete evidence. Parmar shared the details with Babbar Khalsa leaders in Pakistan in 1990 at the time of his formal induction as the vice-president of the organization and member of the Panthic Committee. Talwinder was from the first group of militants in Punjab who returned to Canada after his name surfaced in the encounter with the police at Daheru village near Khanna in Ludhiana district on November 19, 1981 in which a police inspector Pritam Singh Bajwa and constable Surat Singh were killed. He had migrated to that country in 1970 and resigned his job in 1978 to go back to India after the Sikh-Nirankari clash on April 13, 1978. He was associated with the Akhand Kirtani Jatha, a puritan Sikh organization.

According to the information, on target were two flights, the other being Air India Flight 301 from Tokyo to Bangkok for which the baggage carrying the time bomb was booked on the Toronto-Tokyo Canada Pacific Flight 003 at Vancouver. The bomb on this plane exploded at New Tokyo Narita airport killing two Japanese porters shifting the luggage to the Air India flight. The explosion at Narita took place about an hour before Kanishka went down. Both the bombs were timed to explode after the planes had landed. The luggage was to be transferred to the Air India flight at Narita.

Kanishka was an hour and 40 minutes late because of a spare engine that was installed at Toronto under its left wing to be flown to India as per the normal practice. Another newspaper report stated: “A bomb on board was primed to explode on the runway at Heathrow during a refuelling stop. However, there was a delay of over two hours before take-off”. The Washington Post reported: “The plane had taken off late from Toronto on Saturday night, and was again delayed in Montreal”.

All calculations of the conspirators went wrong due to this unforeseen delay that resulted in the unprecedented tragedy. In case the take-off had not been delayed, the bomb would have exploded at London airport after the landing. Parmar was arrested in Canada in this case in November 1985 but released in January 1986 due to lack of evidence. He was arrested again in June 1986 but released in May 1987. He left Canada again in May, 1988 as investigations progressed and the noose started tightening around him.

The Canadian investigators finally traced the case from probe into the Narita explosion in collaboration with the Japanese authorities. Canada requested the UK to extradite Inderjit Singh Reyat who was arrested on February 5, 1988. He had shifted from Canada to UK some months after the Kanishka tragedy. He was finally flown to Vancouver on December 13, 1989 to be tried there. It was Reyat’s re-arrest that alarmed Parmar who then contacted his associates in Babbar Khalsa seeking protection.

It is pertinent to mention that he headed a splinter group of his own as Babbar Khalsa (Talwinder) when he planned these two bombings. The men from Babbar Khalsa staying in Pakistan planned his hiding with the help of some arms smuggler. The ISI providing this contact to the Babbars cannot be ruled out. One of Parmar’s associates had contacted Babbars in Pakistan seeking help for him. Wadhawa Singh, the Babbar Khalsa leader in Pakistan had been associated with Parmar during the early days and thus had a soft corner for him. It was decided to extend every possible assistance to him. He was instructed to board the flight to Bangkok via Karachi. He took the precaution of not boarding the flight from any airport in Canada and took the flight from USA. He used a fake identity and passport to travel to Pakistan. He was brought out at Karachi and taken to Lahore as per the arrangement for such covert operations. This was around May 1988. Pakistan initially did not want to do anything with Parmar but allowed him to enter following the issue having been strongly taken up by the Panthic Committee and the Babbar Khalsa.

One of his associates from Canada was also brought in by these radical Sikh organizations. While facilitating his entry, Pakistan refused to provide him sanctuary as that could have resulted in tension with Canada. Pakistan clearly told Wadhawa and his associates to arrange a safe house for him in India or elsewhere. He stayed in the Lahore area for less than a month before he was shifted to a safe place. It was then that a smuggler named Haji was contacted in Darra Adam Khel town in the Frontier Province of Pakistan to make arrangements for Parmar in the caves in the Frontier area bordering Afghanistan, where he stayed for more than a year and a half from 1988 to 1990, before he was brought back.

He was allowed by Pakistan to stay with the Babbars for only some time after his return from the caves. Pakistan told the Babbars to push him into India. A news report appeared in the Punjabi Tribune from London that Parmar was in contact with Afghan militant leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who later took over as Prime Minister of that country. There was no reference of his having taken shelter in caves on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. As per this report, Hekmatyar had denied any links with the Khalistanis. However, the sources who were active in the Sikh struggle maintain the interaction was routine, if not regular. While in the caves, he planned some major action independently that had the potential to escalate tension between India and Pakistan to a new level and create a war-like situation. He paid Rs. 40 lakhs to Haji for the purchase of a stinger missile that was to be delivered to him in Delhi after he crossed over. His planned operation got leaked to the people in the ISI who were not in favour of such action that could trigger direct confrontation between India and Pakistan. The missile was never delivered.

He formally joined the Babbar Khalsa after his return from the caves. It was in Lahore in late 1990 or early 1991 that Parmar was inducted as vice-president of the BKI and nominated to the apex Panthic Committee (Dr. Sohan Singh). He wanted to head the Babbar Khalsa, as he was from the first group of militants but the organization was in no mood to replace Sukhdev Singh. It was for this reason that he was suitably accommodated as Babbar Khalsa International’s nominee on the Panthic Committee. He returned to India after that. This was the only time that Parmar formally joined the mother organization. Two of his associates were accommodated on the executive committee of the Babbar Khalsa. Two of his associates who were in contact with the Babbars also came to Pakistan when he was to formally join the mother organization.

Also present in that hideout were Dr. Sohan Singh and Daljit Singh who headed the Sikh Students Federation. He stayed in India for about a year and went to Bangkok through Nepal in the summer of 1992. He was there for about 2 months before heading towards Europe. It was during this period that he parted company with the Babbar Khalsa again. He contacted Babbar dissidents in Europe to rope them into his new outfit. He went to Pakistan again from Europe. One of his earlier associates from Canada, Sarmukh Singh, was with him throughout this period. He stayed in Pakistan and sought recognition as Babbar Khalsa (Talwinder) from that country. The authorities were reluctant as Pakistan was not in favour of a split among these people.

He came to India via Nepal after a short stay in Pakistan and settled in Mohali, the Punjab town bordering Chandigarh. He started mobilizing his own network in India. He went to Jammu in the first week of October to meet his contact there, who was retired Major Nanak Singh. It was during one such visit that he finally got trapped. His associates from Europe called him on October 4 on Nanak’s phone. Talwinder told the man to call him again the next day. The man called the next day but no one picked up the phone. He got suspicious.

Major Nanak Singh had told his associates in Canada later that Parmar had gone to Srinagar from Jammu and returned the following day. According to his version, Parmar was picked up from the bus stand in Jammu as he got down from the bus on suspicion, as security was tight that day due to a bomb blast in the city. Nanak claimed that he met Parmar at the police station. He said that it was his offer of a hefty bribe (in lakhs) to the police station in charge for his release that made him suspicious. Parmar had managed to telephone Nanak with the help of a policeman about the situation in which he had landed inadvertently. The Jammu police got in touch with the Punjab police. He was identified by the Punjab police that took over his custody. Nanak claimed that the Jammu police started harassing him. It was at that point that Parmar’s associates in Canada instructed him to move out and provided him financial assistance. He shifted to Delhi for some time from where he moved to Belgium in 1993 to land finally in Canada via Bangkok. The organization realized later that Nanak had double-crossed.

However, official sources in the know of Parmar’s movement maintain he had taken the Chhamb route to enter India that time. He stayed for some time with a contact at Jammu and went to Srinagar. It was at Jammu that he came under the radar of the Intelligence Bureau. The man handling this operation at that time was Ajit Doval who was Inspector General of Police, in charge of operations in Kashmir in the Intelligence Bureau (IB). Doval passed on the information to Punjab Director General of Police (DGP), K.P.S. Gill, who assigned the task to the Jalandhar police. An officer of the level of Superintendent of Police from Punjab coordinated with the IB.

Additional DGP, O.P. Sharma, who headed the Punjab intelligence, later protested for having been kept out of the loop. Operation Parmar was carried out by Doval and Gill. It was a person known to Parmar from the Goraya area nicknamed ‘Sarpanch’ who had come into contact with an IB. This man used to contact Parmar through a Chandigarh-based person known as ‘Professor’. This so-called professor too was known to be an IB mole. It was the Goraya man who was in touch with Parmar before the encounter. The Punjab police was passed on the information about the movement of two Maruti cars. The operation was further assigned to a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) and the Station House Officer of that area. The two cars were intercepted by this police party. The Canadian authorities visited Punjab after this encounter to get details. Yet another visit by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police officials was in 2007 as the investigation in the Kanishka blast proceeded on Parmar’s role. It was during this visit that the Canadian officials met the DSP.

The Official Version of the Encounter:

Giving the details, the Director General of Police, K.P.S. Gill, told newsmen here (Jalandhar) that the Naka party posted at Kangrain village in Phillaur subdivision intercepted two Maruti cars coming from Akalpura. The occupants of the cars, finding no escape route, started firing at the Naka party. The police not only returned the fire but also chased them. The car occupants left the cars and ran to the fields. But the police gunned down three of the fleeing suspects in exchange of fire. The remaining three suspects entered the fields and hid themselves there. But when the police surrounded the fields and fired, the hiding suspects also returned the fire, which continued for two hours. The police started search operations immediately after the firing from the fields stopped and recovered six bodies. Three of the suspects were identified as Talwinder Singh Parmar, the originator of terrorism in Punjab, and two Pakistani nationals Habibullah Khan and Inkhab Ahmed Zia, residents of Lahore. Two passports bearing Nos H-822669 and E-090696 of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan were also recovered. The police also recovered one all-purpose machine gun, three AK-47 assault rifles, one rocket, one rocket launcher, one drum magazine and five magazines of AK 47 rifles.6 Mr. Gill said this was for the first time that the Punjab police had obtained firsthand evidence of Pakistan’s involvement in aiding abetting militancy in Punjab.