"Soft Target"

[nanosecond]

Taken from akj.org phorum http://www.akj.org/phorum/read.ppa?f=3&i=12665&t=12665

THE WASHINGTON TIMES, JUNE 22, 1989

(BY BARRY BROWN)

Toronto.--A new book by two Canadian journalists claims the 1985 bombing of an Air India jetliner that killed 329 persons over the Atlantic Ocean off Ireland was an intelligence operation by the government of India that went awry.

`Soft Target' by Zuhair Kashmeri, an editor at the Toronto Globe and Mail, and Brian McAndrew, an editor at the Toronto Star, accuses the Indian government of funding and encouraging Sikh terrorist groups as a means of discrediting the movement in North America. The book was released today.

The Indian Embassy in Ottawa denies the charge.

V.P. Singh, India's consul general in Toronto, called the book `baseless' and said India's Hindus, Moslems and Sikhs live together peacefully. He adds that those Sikhs who want to carve the nation of `Khalistan' from the northwest state of Punjab are terrorists.

Confronted yesterday with statements before Parliament last week by Reid Morden, director of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS), that the Indian government may have been running spies in Canada, India's Deputy High Commissioner Shiva Swami hung up the phone.

According to the authors, the June 23, 1985, bombing of Air India Flight 182 from Toronto to Bombay was the work of a Sikh group funded by the Indian government. There are some 300,000 Sikhs in Canada.

The bomb was supposed to blow up after the Boeing 747 had l

anded in London and the passengers had disembarked, as happened on a Canadian Pacific flight from Vancouver to Tokyo on the same day. But the flight was delayed and the plane fell into the Atlantic Ocean some 150 miles southwest of Ireland with 329 persons aboard.

Within 16 hours, Mr. Kashmeri claims, he was phoned by Surinder Malik, then India's Consul General in Toronto.

He said Mr. Malik told him how the bombing was done and the names of those involved, information that it took police weeks to confirm.

The authors also write that the main backer of <admin-please stop! its a security issue>, the Sikh group supposedly behind the bombing, got a $2 million loan from the State Bank of India just before the downing.

The authors also accuse the Canadian government of covering up information tying India to the bombing.

Mr. Kashmeri says that in 1986, when CSIS officials told the External Affairs Ministry about an elaborate spy network the Indian government was running in Canada, the ministry `shut down and blocked the investigation.'

The reason, he says, was that the Canadian pipeline firm Nova Corp. was bidding on a $2.5 billion gas pipeline construction project in India and the Canadian government did not want to disturb the negotiations.

When Nova lost the deal, the External Affairs Ministry quietly asked three Indian consuls to leave the country, the book says.

External Affairs has not returned several telephone calls on this matter.

Gian Singh Sandhu, president of the World Sikh Organization in Williams Lake, British Columbia, agrees with the book and accuses the Canadian government of `hypocrisy.'

WJKK, WJKF:

Soft Target is the title of a book that was written by two Canadian journalists back in the mid 1980's. It is in-depth look at how the Indian Intelligence Service penetrated Canada, including the events leading up to the Air India disaster. While it does contain some

flaws, most notably their assertion that Mr. Malik was acting as a double-agent, it is a revealing look into how the Indian Government was able to spread disinformation and discredit the Sikh community in Canada.

With the Air India trial in full swing, demand for this book has skyrocketed. I purchased a used copy (paperback) from a independent Canadian bookdealer through the internet about three years ago for about $20 US. It is an out of print book, so finding a new copy is next to impossible. My suggestion would be to purchase it through www.bookfinder.com service. I did a search for you and found a bookdealer in Toronto who has used copy in good condition. He is asking $36.91 US for it. You can buy it here:

http://dogbert.abebooks.com/abe/BookDetail...ls?bi=181296272

You also might wanna check with several Toronto area gurdwaras, as I believe some people have said that they have some copies in their libraries for sale.

For those of you who are interested, here is the description of the book as it appears on the back cover:

____________________________________________________________

In the 1980’s the Indian Government has been conducting a covert intelligence operation in Canada. This operation has involved the deception both of Canadian Security forces and of the Canadian Government, and led to one of the most horrific acts of modern terrorism-the killing of 329 people in the Air India Bombing of 1985.

These are the conclusions of Soft Target, a startling, shocking book by Zuhair Kashmeri [of the Toronto Globe and Mail] and Brian McAndrew [of the Toronto Star].

At the center of Soft Target are Canada’s Sikhs. Probing deeply into the story of Sikh unrest from the early 1980’s on, Kashmeri and McAndrew argue that the Sikhs are the victims of manipulation and disinformation carried out by the Indian Government. With the aim of discrediting the Sikhs a

nd undermining the campaign for an independent Punjab, Indian agents have infiltrated the Sikh community in Canada, fomenting hostility towards Indian and even provoking violent incidents.

Along the way, say Kashmeri and McAndrew, India has also played a devious game with the Canadian government. In the mid 1980’s, exploiting the Canadian desire to maintain good relations with India, Indian Diplomats and agents directed a steady stream of phony tips on the Sikhs to the Canadian Government. These tips were accepted at face value by External Affairs and the RCMP. Some CSIS agents eventually caught on to what India was doing, but their political masters would not listen.

Drawing on information from Canadian Sikhs, Indian diplomats and agents of CSIS and the RCMP, Soft Target is an extraordinary piece of investigative journalism. Teeming with characters out of a Le Carré novel, the book guides the reader through the byzantine politics of Sikh nationalism and the shadowy world of international espionage. In its convincing analysis of events leading to and following the Air India bombing, it shows who was pulling the strings and who was the made the fool

[S1ngh]

Best book i have ever read on the evil tatics of indian govt in canada.. U will be like after reading it.. Awesome book !!!

btw, i bought it for 9 bucks on ebay hope they again print it !!

[Guest mehtab]

Howcome the title of the article isn't there? :T:

Also i couldn't find this article in the archives of the Washington Times coz they dont have any articles before 1990 :T:

Please provide more proofs

[AmardeepSingh]

Howcome the title of the article isn't there?  :T:

Also i couldn't find this article in the archives of the Washington Times coz they dont have any articles before 1990  :T:

Waheguroo Jee Ka Khalsa!

Waheguroo Jee Kee Fateh!!

The title of the article is: "Blast That Killed 329 Laid to India's Secret Service" and it was on page A7 on the newspaper mentioned above.

Just because the website doesn't have archives before 1990 doesn't mean there aren't any:)

The Washington Times was founded in 1982, but as of now, I believe you can only search articles from as far back as 08/24/1988 (online), there's always microfilm.

Anyway, I was only able to view the abstract of this article and not the full text (which is copied above)

The following is from Toronto Star published on the same day.

Book links Indian agents to jet bombing: pg. A.1

Indian government agents have been linked in a new book to the explosion of an Air India jet in which more than 300 died.<

br>

The intelligence service worked to infiltrate Canada's Sikh population to discredit them, says Soft Target. The thesis comes from Canadian intelligence, who say they have evidence to conclude the agents were linked to both the Air India and Narita Airport bombings in 1985. The High Commission of India in Ottawa has called the charges "nothing but unmitigated trash."

The book was written by Brian McAndrew, an assistant city editor at The Star, and Zuhair Kashmeri, an editor with The Globe and Mail.

See excerpt from book on page A31.

Sinister twists in bombing of Indian jet Did New Delhi agent play role in blast on flight from Toronto that claimed 329 lives in 1985?: pg. A.31

On June 23, 1985, Air-India Flight 182 flying from Toronto to London exploded over the Atlantic, killing all 329 passengers and crew. Fifty-five minutes earlier, a bomb had gone off at Tokyo's Narita Airport killing two workers carting luggage from CP Air Flight 003 to Air-India Flight 301 bound for Bangkok.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police began a probe, as did the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

Four years and $60 million later, no one has been charged in the Air-India crash. The Mounties still hope to make an arrest, RCMP commissioner Norman Inkster told a House of Commons committee last week.

However, a book "Soft Target," released today, contends that CSIS investigators believe Indian government intelligence infiltrated the Canadian Sikh community to discredit its campaign to create an independent state of Khalistan out of the Indian province of the Punjab. CSIS also concluded that "agents of the government of India were linked to the Air-India and Narita bombings," according to the book, written by Zuhair Kashmeri and Brian McAndrew. McAndrew of The Star and Kashmeri of the Globe and Mail covered the Air-India disaster.

The following are excerpts from the book.

CSIS investigators became convinced that th

e Indian intelligence service may have played a role in the bombings. And the further they probed, the more their suspicions grew.

The case against the Indian intelligence service was circumstantial. But it was enough for high-level CSIS officials from Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal to stake their reputations and their jobs on convincing CSIS director Ted Finn to stand firm against the pressure for quick solutions exerted by External Affairs and the solicitor-general's office.

Intelligence agencies

Two senior CSIS officials in British Columbia described, at a CSIS meeting, their version of a criminal flow chart on Sikh violence in Canada. At the very top they placed the government of India, and in brackets beside it, the Secret Service Bureau, Central Bureau of Investigation-Research and Analysis Wing and Third Agency (all Indian intelligence agencies). Below that were the names of Indian agents of influence and agents provocateurs. Below these were the supporters of the Babbar Khalsa (a militant Sikh group, also operating in Canada), many of them suspects in the two bombings.

CSIS's theory of a government of India connection had the support of at least one senior member of the RCMP task force in Vancouver. This individual was pushing internally for a greater emphasis on examining the Indian government's role in the bombing. He was rebuffed.

Meanwhile, CSIS agents continued accumulating fragments of information in support of its contention that the Indian government was involved in the Air-India and Narita bombings.

One of CSIS's first clues came in a very public form - the news media - which, said Pat Olson (pseudonym for a CSIS agent), "blew our minds."

One day after the crash, the Globe and Mail ran a story headlined "Police seeking two fugitives for bombs on jets." The source of the story was identified only as an official of the Indian government. That official, it was later learned, was Surinder Malik, the Indian consul ge

neral in Toronto.

Malik said that Lal Singh and Ammand Singh, the two fugitives sought by the FBI in a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi during his 1985 visit to the United States, were behind the bombing, and that a check of the CP Air computer would confirm the presence of L. Singh on the passenger list.

The information in the article came within 16 hours of the crash, when the police had only just finished retrieving the CP Air passenger list stored in the airline's computer. How could Malik have had access to it and known about the L. Singh listing? And even if he had obtained it through Air-India's own computer - the airline computers are linked - why zero in on L. Singh when there were dozens of other Singhs on the list?

Curiously, Malik knew more details about the two blasts than did the police investigators. In the article, he claimed that his source was the Indian intelligence network, which had traced the methods of planting the bombs and the identity of the culprits within hours. Malik said that while one of the suspects was booked to Japan, the other was booked to Toronto and onwards to Bombay. He also said that the two checked their bomb-laden bags but did not board the flights themselves.

There was also a peculiar string of passenger cancellations in the days preceding Flight 182. In the eyes of CSIS intelligence analysts, the change in travel plans by people associated with the Indian government was suspicious.

The influence of the Indian government seemed to crop up practically everywhere as CSIS agents investigated the Sikh separatists either as national security threats or as suspects in the Air-India and Narita bombings. A case in point was a bombing incident in India less than a year earlier that was remarkably similar to the Air-India catastrophe.

On August 2, 1984, at Madras Airport two bombs went off, killing 29 people and injuring 38 others. Local police linked the bombing to terrorists in Sri Lanka. The police investigation u

ncovered a plot by Tamil separatists to plant the two explosives-filled suitcases on board a flight from Madras to Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka.

The luggage was tagged by an accomplice at Madras airport so that in Colombo the bags would be automatically loaded in the cargo hold of two Air Lanka planes bound for London and Paris. The bombs were timed to go off while the airplanes were still on the ground at Colombo airport.

The passenger who checked the luggage in Madras did not board the flight to Colombo and did not go through the routine customs and immigration checks before the flight departed. Customs officers had singled out the two bags for examination, possibly because they were unusually heavy. When they could not find the owner, they set the bags aside for later examination.

Similar plans

According to Fred Gibson and Pat Olson (pseudonyms for CSIS agents), CSIS found the similarities between the Madras plot and the bombings in Narita and aboard Air-India remarkable, especially regarding the intended times of detonation. Air-India Flight 182 was not supposed to blow up in mid-air. The bomb was timed to explode on the ground at Heathrow International Airport during the London refuelling stop. Because of the lengthy delay in Toronto, the airplane was well behind schedule. It was one hour away from landing in London when the bomb exploded.

CSIS was astounded that such similar plans could be hatched in opposite parts of the world. It would not be so astounding, though, if the plans emanated from the same source - namely, from within the Indian intelligence service.

The Indian intelligence group linked to the Madras bombings was a shadowy outfit known as the Third Agency, CSIS learned. The Indian government had created this top-secret organization in the early 1980s to encourage extremist activities by Sikh radicals in Punjab. The aim was to rally support for the government throughout the rest of the country.

After studying reports about the Third Agency, C

SIS analysts developed a theory that the organization, or one very much like it, had moved into Canada and may have been responsible for the Air- India and Narita bombings.

CSIS had enough circumstantial material to reach the conclusion that agents of the government of India were linked to the Air-India and Narita bombings. On the question of how deep the involvement was, there were two divergent views.

Gibson and his group took the position that an order to bomb the aircraft on the ground, causing minimal risk of damage to life and property, came directly from New Delhi, most likely from the Third Agency. Olson and others believed that the Indian operation in Canada went beyond the mandate set out by the Indian government, that even though the operatives did receive instructions from New Delhi to neutralize the Sikh separatist movement, the idea of planting the bombs was the operatives' alone.

In its pursuit of Talwinder Singh Parmar - the Vancouver-based leader of the Babbar Khalsa movement in Vancouver and by then the prime suspect in Canada in the Air-India bombing - CSIS was picking up strange and conflicting intelligence reports. They led it to develop a theory about the identity of the mysterious Third Man (who was tailed by CSIS in June, 1985, near Duncan, B.C., with Parmar and B.C. resident Inderjit Singh Reyat and had received a Sanyo stereo tuner from Reyat, the same model that ultimately blew up at Narita Airport).

Reyat, now in England, has been ordered extradited to Canada by Britain's High Court to face charges of two counts of manslaughter in the Narita explosion. He has appealed the decision.)

CSIS came to believe that the Third Man was Shera Singh, a businessman from Punjab and a supporter of India's ruling Congress Party. Shera Singh was shot and killed in a dispute with a rival wine merchant in Punjab in April, 1986. Although Indian police issued an arrest warrant for the killer, the investigation was quashed and the charge never laid, said the vi

ctim's brother, Gurbachan "Joe" Madpuri, a Mississauga factory owner who also has strong ties to the Indian government. Madpuri was the president of the Overseas Congress Party, an organization established to assist expatriate East Indians in Canada.

Members of Babbar Khalsa knew of Shera Singh's brother Madpuri through this Overseas Congress Party and its cozy relationship with the Indian consulate. (And it was at Madpuri's home that) Parmar met Davinder Singh Ahluwalia, the Indian vice-consul and intelligence agent in Toronto in 1985.

By the time CSIS put all its information together, it found itself bogged down in a sea of overwhelming contradictions. It knew that Parmar had called for bloodshed in Punjab but that he was cowardly enough to sneak away from his detractors through side doors as he had at a meeting in Toronto. It knew that he publicly denied killing (two) police officers in Punjab but that he privately took credit for the affair and revelled in the notoriety it brought him.

Parmar spoke openly against the Indian government but met secretly with its representative. Police could find no hard evidence that his close follower, Inderjit Singh Reyat, actually built a bomb. The Third Man - possibly Shera Singh - also touched the stereo tuner but Shera Singh was dead and could provide no answers.

Handful of threads

CSIS was left holding a handful of threads but without the means to tie them together to form a continuous string.

Parmar also had a wealthy backer, a millionaire businessman in Vancouver. The businessman came to Canada in 1972 from Punjab.

When CSIS examined this man's finances, however, it uncovered some curious information. On March 21, 1984, his company received a $2 million loan from the State Bank of India (Canada) Ltd. He had signed a single-demand debenture with a bank owned by the government of India.

It was unusual, to say the least, for the Indian government to co- operate financially with an indiv

idual who supported a man like Parmar.

The businessman said he had been described by the Indian consulate in Vancouver as a "security threat" and was told that he would not be granted a visa to visit India. India was refusing him a visa on the grounds of security. Yet its own bank, aware that a portion of the businessman's earnings went to help the Babbar Khalsa and Parmar, maintained a $2 million line of credit for him.

CSIS based its thesis on a profile of Parmar put together by its agents and analysts. It was a scenario that told the agency that this man, despite his Sikh spiel, was being used to actually destroy the expatriate Sikh movement.

In early 1989, Parmar disappeared. There were unsubstantiated reports of him surfacing in both India and Pakistan. Many Sikhs, however, believed he was safely hidden in British Columbia.

Excerpted from "Soft Target", by Zuhair Kashmeri and Brian McAndrew, published by James Lorimer & Company Ltd.

Excerpted from book SOFT TARGET

[illustration]

Caption: Photos book cover SOFT TARGET; Talwinder Singh Parmar; Surinder Malik; Inderjit Singh Reyat

[AmardeepSingh]

Waheguroo Jee Ka Khalsa!

Waheguroo Jee Kee Fateh!!

Forgot to mention this as well. I've sumbitted a request to check out this book from the interlibrary loan services, but not sure if I'll get my hands on it.

Found the following on sikhnet discussion. It was originally from an email, and is a few years old (Nov 2000) but still worth the effort. I'll check tommorow or monday to see if the number still works.

"In 1989 there was an interesting book written on the Air India Disaster. Written by Zuhair Kashmeri and Brian McAndrew, the book investigated the Indian Government's role in the disaster.

The book is now out of print, and even though the book's publisher and distribution company have received some recent interest in the book. They say they haven't received enough to warrant a re-print.

The person i spoke to said, if they continue to receive requests for the book, they will eventually re-print it.

They say they have received requests for 100 books, but that's not enough to warrant a re-print of a minimum of 2000.

Please call the number below and inquire about Soft Target, you will not be under any obligation to buy, but the interest in the book will cause the publishers to consider re-printing it.

Formac Distributors 1-800-565-1975

[NOTE: Book is no longer available through Amazon. com and Barnes & Noble

11/18/00 sks]"

Waheguroo Jee Ka Khalsa!

Waheguroo Jee Kee Fateh!!

[DhadiMania]

DEATH 2 THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT!!!!!!!

[AmardeepSingh]

Waheguroo Jee Ka Khalsa!

Waheguroo Jee Kee Fateh!!

I recieved this email last year (February 12, 2003)

Here's a link to the ONLINE book that it mentions Betrayal: The Spy That Canada Forgot

I just skimmed through it and found referrences to Sikhs/Air India in chapters 8-10 beggining at the end of chapter 8 and ending at the beginning of chapter 10.

Canadian Courts Cover Up Indian Complicity in Bombing

Reyat Plea Matches RCMP Story Suggested in 1985 Questioning

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 12, 2003 – The recent plea bargain by Inderjit Singh Reyat in the 1985 Air India is the result of a concerted Indo-Canadian effort to cover up the Indian government’s own responsibility for this atrocity that killed 329 innocent people, said Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh, President of the Council of Khalistan, which leads the Sikh Nation's struggle for independence.

The book Soft Target, written by respected Canadian journalists Zuhair Kashmeri of the Toronto Globe and Mail and Brian McAndrew of the Toronto Star, clearly established that the Indian government is responsible for the bombing. The book quotes an investigator from the Canadian Security Investigative Service (CSIS) who said, "If you really want to clear up the incidents quickly, take vans down to the Indian High Commission and the consulates in Toronto and Vancouver, load up everybody and take them down for questioning. We know it and they know it that they are involved."

Mere hours after the incident, whi

le the CSIS and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were still retrieving the passenger list stored in the Air India computer, Indian Consul General Surinder Malik called the Globe and Mail to tell them to look for an "L. Singh" on the passenger manifest. How could Malik have known this? “L. Singh” appears to refer to a Sikh named Lal Singh. Lal Singh told an Indian newspaper that he was offered "$2 million and settlement in a nice country" to testify falsely against the three individuals that Canada has charged with the bombing, an offer he refused. Curiously, Consul General Malik knew more details about the case than the police did.

Malik had pulled his wife and daughter off the flight suddenly, claiming that his daughter had a paper to write for school. A Canadian auto dealer who was a friend of Malik's cancelled his reservation on the flight at the last minute, as well. So did Siddhartha Singh, head of North American Affairs for external relations in New Delhi. In addition, the sister-in-law of the head of the Canadian wing of Dal Khalsa cancelled her reservations. Dal Khalsa is a political party formed by Zail Singh, who was President of India when Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister. How did all these people affiliated with the Indian government come to cancel their reservations at the last minute?

The story told in court in connection with Inderjit Singh Reyat’s plea bargain matches in significant detail the story pressed upon him at the time of his initial arrest in November 1985, which he denied. An RCMP agent named Glen Rockwell told Reyat that he could get off the hook if he said that others hatched the bombing plot and sought his assistance and that he didn’t know what he was doing. Reyat replied, “I didn’t help killing those people. No way.” He said that Talwinder Singh Parmar, who has since been murdered by the Indian police, wanted to send some kind of explosive device to India. These details match the “statement of facts” at Reyat’s trial.

r>The Indian Consul General planted a story in the Globe and Mail claiming that Reyat was given a parcel to carry onto the flight by Jagdev Nijjar, whose brother was in the inner circle of Jagjit Singh Chohan, who claims to be a Khalistani leader, but who was exposed in the book Chakravyuh: Web of Indian Secularism by Professor Gurtej Singh IAS in letters showing that he connived with the Indian government in planning the attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Chohan is also tied to Dal Khalsa. If the Indian government really believes that Chiohan’s followers were involved in the incident, then why wasn’t Chohan arrested when he returned to India last year?

A Member of the Canadian Parliament, David Kilgour, confirms the Indian government’s involvement. In his book Betrayal: The Spy That Canada Forgot, he writes about a Canadian-Polish double agent who was introduced to Indian government agents. They asked him to join in their plot to carry out a second bombing of an Air India jet, telling him that “the first one worked so well.”

“The evidence clearly continues to show that the Indian regime blew up its own airliner to damage the Sikh freedom movement,” said Dr. Aulakh. “This is consistent with the pattern of Indian government efforts to protect its tyrannical rule over the minorities of South Asia.”

The government of India has murdered over 250,000 Sikhs since 1984, more than 200,000 Christians since 1948, over 85,000 Muslims in Kashmir since 1988, and tens of thousands of Tamils, Assamese, Manipuris, Dalits (the aboriginal people of the subcontinent), and others. Last March, the Indian government murdered 2,000 to 5,000 Muslims in Gujarat, according to the newspaper The Hindu. Over 52,000 Sikhs are being held as political prisoners. The Indian Supreme Court called the Indian government's murders of Sikhs "worse than a genocide." On October 7, 1987, the Sikh Nation declared the independence of its homeland, Punjab, Khalistan. No Sikh representative has ever sign

ed the Indian constitution. The Sikh Nation demands freedom for its homeland, Khalistan.

“Only in a free and sovereign Khalistan will the Sikh Nation prosper. In a democracy, the right to self-determination is the sine qua non and India should allow a plebiscite for the freedom of the Sikh Nation and all the nations of South Asia,” Dr. Aulakh said.

Waheguroo Jee Ka Khalsa!

Waheguroo Jee Kee Fateh!!

[V]

an intelligence operation by the government of India that went awry.

are people finally getting 'ukal'

[AmardeepSingh]

Check gurseva hub for Soft Target download

[Gurpreet Singh]

Waheguroo Jee Ka Khalsa!

Waheguroo Jee Kee Fateh!!

Thats one interesting book....it revelealed a lot about the indian government evil doings