In a new effort to solve Canada's deadliest unsolved crime, RCMP officers investigating the 1985 Air India bombing were in India yesterday to interview at least 10 people, including a former school bus driver for a Sikh-based parochial school in Surrey.
The five-member RCMP team, led by liaison officer Shane Tuckey, were to question Mohan Singh Johal, who worked at the Khalsa School, the online edition of the newspaper Indian Express reported yesterday. Mr. Johal was the younger brother of Hardial Singh Johal, who was a suspect in the Air India conspiracy. Mr. Johal died of natural causes and was never charged with any crime.
The Mounties were also expecting to speak with Bhai Jiwan Singh, who allegedly visited someone (not identified to Indian authorities) prior to the bombing and put pressure on him to participate.
RCMP Commissioner William Elliott confirmed the officers were in India, but wouldn't comment on what in particular they were looking for.
"The investigation is ongoing, and they're interviewing witnesses and trying to gather evidence, and I'm not in a position to say any more than that," he said yesterday after giving a speech in Vancouver.
The RCMP's arrival in India followed a letter this year from Canadian authorities seeking authorization to travel in India, the Indian Express reported.
Carol Belisle of the internal assistance group in the Canadian Justice Department, said the interviews would focus "on obtaining any knowledge of Canadian Babbar Khalsa members and Indian Babbar Khalsa members that may assist the Air India investigation."
An Indian court authorized the Mounties to question two members of the terrorist group, the Babbar Khalsa International, who are currently in jail for the assassination of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh in 1995.
The two members - Jagtar Singh Hawara and Paramjit Singh Bheora - provided police with names of Babbar Khalsa International members in Canada, the United States, Germany and Britain, but have not supplied any information pertaining to the Air India bombing, Canadian authorities told the Indian government. The interviews with Mr. Hawara and Mr. Bheora were to be conducted today under the supervision of the Chandigarh police.
The list of people to be interviewed also included an Indian known to have been in contact with alleged Air India mastermind Talwinder Singh Parmar, another man believed to have purchased a safe house in India from money provided by Mr. Parmar, and a third man who acquired property that once belonged to Mr. Parmar.
The 1985 bombing of an Air India flight from Canada to Britain killed 329 people, most of them Canadian citizens of Indian origin. Only one person, Inderjit Singh Reyat, has been convicted in the case. Mr. Reyat was found guilty of manslaughter for his role in gathering materials for the bomb. After serving his full sentence, he is now living in Surrey.
The bombing of the flight has been widely blamed on Sikh separatists who used British Columbia as a base for their independence campaign in northern India. It is suspected Sikh extremists bombed the government-owned airliner in retaliation for a 1984 Indian army raid on the Golden Temple, Sikhism's holiest shrine. The Indian government crushed the separatist campaign in the Punjab state in the early 1990s.
A public inquiry was convened to review how authorities handled the case. Testimony ended in the spring, but the inquiry has not issued its report.
With reports from Associated Press and The Canadian Press