Ripudaman Singh Malik, who was acquitted in the 1985 Air India bombing case, was shot dead in Surrey, British Columbia, on Thursday morning, according to Canadian news outlets.
According to witness testimony, three shots were fired, and Malik was struck in the neck. According to media accounts, shots were fired around 9.30 a.m. local time, and a man died at the site. They stated that it seemed to be a targeted shooting.
The blast on Air India Flight 182, Emperor Kanishka, a Boeing 747 aircraft on its way from Montreal to Delhi on June 23, 1985, led to the deaths of all 329 people on board. Imran Malik, Inderjeet Singh Reyat, and Ajaib Singh Bagri were among the main accused.
They were later acquitted after the prosecutor’s witness, Reyat, said that he did not recall the details of the plot or the participants’ names. Malik and Bagri were charged with 329 counts of first-degree murder cases.
Malik wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this year, prior to the Punjab elections in February, thanking him for the actions done for the welfare of Sikhs. He had warned against a concerted attempt to discredit the Prime Minister, listing the BJP’s significant initiatives, including the reopening of the 1984 riots cases.
The bomb on the Air India flight was put into cargo in a suitcase during a layover in Vancouver, according to investigators at the time, and exploded over the Atlantic Ocean in Irish airspace at a height of 31,000 feet.
Another device exploded at Narita Airport the same day, killing two luggage handlers. The bomb was hidden inside a backpack that had been checked into a Canadian Pacific Airlines flight in Vancouver and was later placed on Air India Flight 301 to Bangkok.
Following Operation Blue Star in 1984, Canadian and Indian authorities decided that the two attacks were connected and were planned and carried out by Sikh separatists operating in Canada.
“I am profoundly pained by the passing of Sardar Ripudaman Singh Malik in Canada,” Shiromani Akali Dal Delhi president and former chief of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) Paramjit Singh Sarna said in a statement. The damage is irreversible. Sardar Malik established a number of Khalsa schools and was a leader in Canadian humanitarian initiatives. My heartfelt condolences go out to his family. We hope that Canadian authorities will conduct a comprehensive investigation after his death and bring those responsible to justice.”
