A New Article On 1985 Air India Bomb Blast

[Singh, Mahan]

Source: http://www.vancouver...7601/story.html

.

‘Not if, but when’: 27 years after Air India, terrorist threat to Canada still looms large

Friday, June 22, 2012

By Chris Cobb, The Ottawa Citizen

OTTAWA — Could it happen again?

“It isn’t so much if as when,” says former Canadian Security and Intelligence Service officer Francois Lavigne, who was part of the original investigation after a bomb exploded in luggage on Air India Flight 182 on June 23, 1985, killing all 329 people on board.

A second, apparently mistimed, explosion killed two baggage handlers at Japan’s Narita Airport.

Lavigne says he’s haunted by the 331 victims and still angry that intelligence officers with the fledgling security service were labelled incompetents and took the brunt of the blame.

“There were plenty of us who warned our superiors about the probability of a violent incident,” he says. “Most of them did not want to listen, because those who made the decisions — the ministers — didn’t believe it was possible, and worse, didn’t want to hear about it.”

The four-year Air India inquiry, headed by former Supreme Court justice John Major, was pointed in its criticism.

“A cascading series of errors contributed to the failure of our police and security forces to prevent this atrocity,” wrote Major in his report, released two years ago.

Major had plenty of evidence to support his criticism, including the RCMP’s failure to protect Indo-Canadian Times editor Tara Singh Hayer, who was murdered before he could testify at the trial of two suspects who were ultimately acquitted.

“In the end, of the three individuals who were to be key witnesses in the Air India trial, one was murdered, one feigned memory loss because she was too frightened to testify and one was forced to a witness protection program two years earlier than planned.”

Bomb maker Singh Reyat, who served 10 years for manslaughter, is the only person to be convicted in the plot.

The Major report was lauded by most, but Lavigne — a respected intelligence analyst — says it suffered from the “fatal flaw” of not being allowed to investigate the role of the Indian government in the attack.

CSIS and the RCMP knew trouble was brewing among Sikhs in the Vancouver area, says Lavigne, and they had telephone intercepts from Indian diplomats living in Ottawa that proved the Indian government had successfully infiltrated the Sikh community.

“To those who would say that the possibility of Indian government officials being involved in Air India is ridiculous, I would say simply that the Service (CSIS) did possess evidence of that very thing. At the time, in 1984-85, External Affairs were very keen on encouraging commerce between Canada and India, so nothing could interfere with those efforts. However, because the Major Commission was prohibited from investigating possible Indian involvement, there is no mention of this in the final report.”

Security and intelligence expert Michel Juneau-Katsuya, who worked with Lavigne on the investigation, confirms that CSIS knew that Indian diplomats had infiltrated Sikh radicals, and might have been frustrated at the federal government’s reluctance to accept Canada was harbouring such a potentially violent enemy.

“But did they cross the line, provoke an incident to get Canada’s cooperation?” he says. “We don’t know.”

CSIS deserved much of the criticism Major tossed at it, says Juneau-Katsuya, especially over the destruction of evidence, which basically scuppered the possibility of successful prosecutions.

“Absolutely, some of the criticisms were correct,” he says. “CSIS wanted, at all costs, to avoid going to court, so if they didn’t have any evidence they wouldn’t have to testify. These guys were all from the RCMP, and they knew exactly what to do to avoid going to court.”

But times were also different, he added.

“We had just made the transition from RCMP to CSIS, and we had a shift in the world situation. We knew about terrorism, but we were familiar with European and Middle East terrorism. Indian terrorism had never been on the radar. Air India was an awakening for the entire world.”

Another devastating terrorist attack on Canadian soil has become a greater possibility with the elimination, in the Conservatives’ omnibus budget bill, of the Inspector General of CSIS, adds Juneau-Katsuya.

“This is a very important position that is being eliminated,” he says. “It is the eyes and ears of the minister of public safety, and without it, the government has increased the possibility that a situation like Air India could happen again.”

Bal Gupta, whose wife, Ramwati, perished on Flight 182, says the risk of another terrorist attack in or from Canada will remain real while Canadian politicians continue to hustle for votes among radical ethnic elements.

“The politicians must learn — if they want to learn — that they should not be going to the functions of criminals to ask for votes,” says Gupta, who heads the Air India Victims Families Association. “I still see politicians cavorting with terrorist supporters. It has to stop. Next time, it might not be just a plane full of brown-skinned east Indians who die.”

The Major inquiry coincided with Canadian negotiations to sell a nuclear reactor to India, notes former CSIS agent Lavigne.

“It might be a coincidence, (but) the Major Commission was prohibited from making any conclusions concerning possible Indian government involvement.

“But if our leaders purposely hide the truth to satisfy interests other than Canadians’ safety,” he adds, “we are doomed to suffer a repeat of June 23, 1985.”

ccobb@ottawacitizen.com

© Copyright © The Ottawa Citizen

Some noteworthy sections from the article

“To those who would say that the possibility of Indian government officials being involved in Air India is ridiculous, I would say simply that the Service (CSIS) did possess evidence of that very thing. At the time, in 1984-85, External Affairs were very keen on encouraging commerce between Canada and India, so nothing could interfere with those efforts. However, because the Major Commission was prohibited from investigating possible Indian involvement, there is no mention of this in the final report.”

Security and intelligence expert Michel Juneau-Katsuya, who worked with Lavigne on the investigation, confirms that CSIS knew that Indian diplomats had infiltrated Sikh radicals, and might have been frustrated at the federal government’s reluctance to accept Canada was harbouring such a potentially violent enemy.

“But did they cross the line, provoke an incident to get Canada’s cooperation?” he says. “We don’t know.”

CSIS deserved much of the criticism Major tossed at it, says Juneau-Katsuya, especially over the destruction of evidence, which basically scuppered the possibility of successful prosecutions.

“Absolutely, some of the criticisms were correct,” he says. “CSIS wanted, at all costs, to avoid going to court, so if they didn’t have any evidence they wouldn’t have to testify. These guys were all from the RCMP, and they knew exactly what to do to avoid going to court.”

The Major inquiry coincided with Canadian negotiations to sell a nuclear reactor to India, notes former CSIS agent Lavigne.

“It might be a coincidence, (but) the Major Commission was prohibited from making any conclusions concerning possible Indian government involvement.

“But if our leaders purposely hide the truth to satisfy interests other than Canadians’ safety,” he adds, “we are doomed to suffer a repeat of June 23, 1985.”

[dashmesh1984]

this case is so confusing i still don't know who was behind the bombings

[hsisingh]

Let me help you with your confusion. I am ashamed to say that Sikhs were behind this attack.

It is a blot on the Sikh community that innocent people were murdered in this horrendous fashion.

The investigation was bungled by the Canadian authorities, but an independent public enquiry led by a very senior, retired judge concluded that ..."Talwinder Singh Parmar [...] was the leader of the conspiracy to bomb Air India flights."

[Jonny101]

Let me help you with your confusion. I am ashamed to say that Sikhs were behind this attack.

It is a blot on the Sikh community that innocent people were murdered in this horrendous fashion.

The investigation was bungled by the Canadian authorities, but an independent public enquiry led by a very senior, retired judge concluded that ..."Talwinder Singh Parmar [...] was the leader of the conspiracy to bomb Air India flights."

Old saying in English: Dead men tell no tails...

Since no one alive is left to convict, they found two innocent Singhs to accuse for the bombing. They spent millions upon millions of dollars to try to prove these men were guilty of the crime. The entire Gora WASP media was against these Singhs. Despite this overwhelming attempt at trying to prove these innocent Singhs as the guilty party, they couldn't even find a shred of evidence which shows any link between these Singhs and the bombing. Now all they have is Talwinder Singh a dead man. It's very easy to point fingers at dead men because unlike live men they don't come back to prove they are are innocent.

The bombing was a "false flag operation" done by the Indian government. Search "false flag operation". Many governments through out the world do these false flag operations. The Nazis did it when they burnt the Reichstag 1933 and pinned the blame on the communists of Germany. The israeli government did it in 1967 when they attacked the USS liberty and tried to pin the blame on Egypt.

[hsisingh]

I must have missed it...can you outline the evidence supporting your theory that the Flight 182 crash was a false flag operation...

...and then perhaps you can also show how 9/11 was done by the US government and the Holocaust is fiction too..

[Jonny101]

I must have missed it...can you outline the evidence supporting your theory that the Flight 182 crash was a false flag operation...

...and then perhaps you can also show how 9/11 was done by the US government and the Holocaust is fiction too..

You can mock it any way you like by comparing this to the 9/11 or Holocaust denial. But it is not the same. But I'm not a muppet who will just blindly believe in the media. At least we have proof that 9/11 was done by AlQaida, and Holocaust did in fact happen. But Indian government supporters like you have absolutely not a shred of evidence to prove Sikhs did this. You think the Indian government which just a year earlier had carried out operation blue star under false pretense of flushing out the "terrorists" on a holy day when thousands of pilgrims were attending to exact maximum civilian casualties, then months later carried out operation woodrose to suppress the Sikhs and did riots in which untold thousands of civilians again were slaughtered you think such a government would not implement more false flag operations? Yes, your Indian government is very innocent indeed.

[N30S1NGH]

We all knew it all long that GOI was behind this terrorist attack. Even soft target books puts a huge question park behind talvinder singh parmar and malik characters. The fact that parmar bought a house in burnaby in cash - $350,000 during those time should trigger an alarm or some what concern among gullible sangat. The fact malik received got his million dollar loan approved from state bank of india should trigger alarms. We need to get rid of little tribal interest or tribal group association with these individuals..fine no one is expecting everyone to declare them outright self styled terrorist etc etc, but we shouldn't be pro-actively endorsing them either in rally etc, as there is huge question on these characters..supporting them makes us look like idiots, fanatics thats what GOI wants...!!!!. Our best bet if you want to focus on sikh struggle, sikh human rights abuses just stick to two individuals- yodha bhramgyani - Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and Shaheed human right activist Bhai Jaswant Singh Khalra..!!!!!!!!!!

All these big hot shots khalistanis abroad who are making big noise abroad are potential raw agents...you be amazed in amount of infiltration of raw agents here in Canada!!!!

If you want to win public opinion of mass and tell your story, we need to forget about who is doing seva or create organizations etc etc (no one gives two hoots about sikh human right abuse, we are seen here as tribal hostile group), collectively upload all the works of jaswant singh khalra to Wikileaks server and lobby wikileaks..as soon it's shown through wikileaks i strongly beleive it will have great effect on public opinion..wikileaks already won hearts of millions of people.!!!!!!

[Mehtab Singh]

http://www.sikhsangat.com/index.php?/topic/1973-soft-target/

[N30S1NGH]

You can download soft target book here:

http://download.waheguroo.com/downloads/Books/Soft%20Target%20ebook.pdf

[Jonny101]

N30 Singh Jee, by pointing the blame at the Singhs from a different angle does not make your point anymore credible. Do you know that proof they have proving these Singhs did the bombing??? absolutely ZERO! All the evidence that people have who are pointing fingers at these Singhs have is based on a creative imagination, nothing solid or definite. This isn't India where the Indian government can plant "proof" or torture someone to extract testimony to falsely incriminate someone in a crime. The Canadian prosecution team equipped with support from csis (intelligence agency) with all their modern forensic facilities spent millions of dollars in trying to find some shred of evidence against these Singhs. But you know what they found??? NOTHING!!! And in the west it is INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY! the other way around.

I think that the real reason you are against them is because they may have links with the Babbar Khalsa or AKJ which I know you dislike. We need to rise above our petty sectarian differences and think of the bigger picture. Personally I'm not a supporter of Talwinder Singh or associated with AKJ in anyway shape or form but I'm not going to blindly support the media against fellow Sikhs because they happen to be pointing the blame at a certain group which I'm not in agreement with. We are all on the same boat here. Let us not weaken to the group by letting our sectarian differences get the better of us.