Ripudaman Singh Malik, Man Accused In Kanishka Bombing Case, Shot Dead In Canada

Ripudaman Singh Malik has died. He was shot dead in a targeted shooting in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. Malik was one of the accused in the 1985 Kanishka bombing case.

The Kanishka bombing case is also known as the Air India bombings. It was the worst terrorist attack in aviation history until the 9/11 attacks.

It was June 23, 1985. Air India flight 182 was flying from Montreal to London, with New Delhi being the next destination. The bomb had been placed in a suitcase, which was checked into cargo during a stopover in Vancouver.

The bomb exploded above the Atlantic Ocean in Irish airspace. The aircraft was cruising at an altitude of 31,000 feet.

The aircraft crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Ireland, killing 331 passengers and crew.

Families did not hear for days that everyone on board had died. Deepak Khandelwal of Oakville, Ontario was 17 years old during the terrorist attack.

His two elder sisters, Chandra, 21 and Manju, 19, were onboard. They were travelling to India, to attend their uncle's wedding.

"I was supposed to be on the flight as well. I actually just cancelled a couple of days beforehand because I was finishing Grade 12 and got a scholarship to go to a program at the University of Calgary. And so, I chose to do that instead of going to my uncle's wedding," said Khandelwal.

The residents of Cork, Ireland helped families like Khandelwal identify the bodies of their loved ones.

Canadian and Indian investigations concluded the bombings were planned and executed by Sikh separatists based in Canada, working under the instructions of militants who were active in Punjab.

The bombings had been carried out by the militant group Babbar Khalsa as revenge for Operation Blue Star.

The investigations focused on three main accused: Ripudaman Singh Malik, Inderjit Singh Reyat, and Ajaib Singh Bagri, all of whom were Canadian citizens.

Malik was born in Lahore — now in Pakistan — on Feb. 5, 1947 — just before the partition of India.

He was still a baby when his father Ranjit Singh moved the family to Ferozpur, Punjab — on the Indian side of the new border.

The family bought a gas station and opened a drugstore and later moved into a large home. Ripudaman Malik emigrated to England in the early 70s before arriving in Vancouver where he settled and raised his family — four sons and a daughter.

Malik came to Canada in 1972 and started off as a cab driver. Later, he went on to become the president of a 16,000-member Vancouver-based Khalsa Credit Union (KCU) with assets worth over $110 million.

Malik was the president of Satnam Education Society of British Columbia, Canada, and ran Khalsa schools, which besides teaching the Canadian syllabus, also taught Punjabi language and Sikh history.

Ujjal Dosnjh, who served as B.C.’s first Indo-Canadian premier, knew Malik.

Dosnjh was studying law when he first met Malik in the 1970s. At the time, Malik was a “ganja smoking ponytail hippy” with a business in Gastown.

Dosnjh says that something changed in Malik in the late 70s. Malik became more focussed on religion. With Dosnjh's help he set up a society to start a Sikh religious school.

Dosnjh says that after operation Blue Star, Malik was drawn deeper into religious radicalism.

According to a report from the Indian Express, "Malik was allegedly associated with the Babbar Khalsa, and was close to Talwinder Singh Parmar, the alleged mastermind of the Kanishka bombings, who was killed by the Punjab Police in 1992. Two of Parmar’s relatives worked in one of Malik’s schools."

Malik was accused of funding the bombings. The Kanishka bombing case began in April 2003.

Malik and his co-accused, Ajaib Singh Bagri, were found not guilty in March 2005 of murder and conspiracy in a pair of Air India bombings that killed 331 people on June 23, 1985.

The blockbuster acquittal of Malik and co-accused Ajaib Singh Bagri on charges of mass murder and conspiracy in the Air India bombings that killed 331 people, most of them Canadian, was a tragedy for the victims’ families.

According to the report by Express, "it was Reyat’s false testimony that led to the acquittal of Malik and Bagri. Reyat remains the only person convicted in connection with the bombings. The relatives of the victims still believe that had Reyat testified truthfully in the trial of Malik and Bagri, justice would have been served."

Gary Bass was in charge of the terrorism investigation into the 1985 Air India bombing.

Bass recalls monitoring a seven-hour interview Malik gave to the Air India investigators after his October 2000 arrest.

“I watched that interview. And he was a different person than he portrays in public for sure. He was cocky. He took his turban off, and he had his feet up on the desk, and really playing games,” Bass recalled. “And coming very close to confessing and then kind of backing away … not the pious religious guy that he’d like everyone to think for sure.”

Malik was shot to death as he sat inside his car about 9:30 a.m. Thursday outside an industrial plaza where he has a business office in the 8200-block of 128th Street.

"Former DSGMC president Manjit Singh GK said Ripudaman Malik had gone back to Canada on June 6-7 after a fortnight-long visit to India. Earlier he had visited India in December 2019 after 25 years following the Narendra Modi government’s decision to remove his name from the ‘blacklist’," as per a report.

Apparently, during Punjab elections this year, Malik had written a letter to PM Narendra Modi, thanking him for the steps taken for the welfare of the Sikhs.

His letter listed various pro-Sikh initiatives taken by the BJP government, including reopening of the 1984 riots cases.

In a separate message, he had warned against indulging in a “nefarious campaign” against the PM and had hinted that it was being orchestrated by a foreign power.