A recording of the alleged confession of the mastermind behind the bombing of Air India Flight 182 has surfaced 22 years after the tragedy, an investigative magazine in India says.
Vancouver Sikh militant Talwinder Singh Parmar confessed to Punjab police during five days of interrogation in October, 1992, before being killed by police, the article says. The officer who arrested Mr. Parmar, Harmail Singh Chandi, was directed to destroy the tape-recorded confession but he kept them secretly, it says.
Under the headline "Operation Silence," the article in the magazine Tehelka also says the police officer who arrested Mr. Parmar flew to Canada in June to provide evidence to the Air India inquiry headed by retired judge John Major.
However a spokesman for families of the victims of the attack said last night that he knew nothing about a statement by Mr. Parmar.
In the alleged confession, Mr. Parmar shifted the blame from himself, telling police he was acting on behalf of Lakhbir Singh Brar, a member of a prominent family in the fight in the 1980s for a Sikh separate country called Khalistan.
Mr. Parmar is said to have told police that Vancouver Island resident Inderjit Singh Reyat prepared the suitcases with bombs for two flights while Mr. Brar arranged for the booking of the tickets.
Mr. Brar has not been linked to the Air India disaster previously. Mr. Reyat was convicted in 2005 and sent to prison; he is the only person to have been convicted for the bombings. In one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in aviation history, a bomb exploded on an Air India flight from Canada to India on June 23, 1985, killing 329 people. The bombs were in suitcases checked in at Vancouver airport. Police say the attacks were the work of a Vancouver-based circle of Sikh militants fighting with the Indian government over the creation of Khalistan. Mr. Reyat was convicted for providing items that went into the bombs.
Mr. Parmar was arrested in connection with the bombings and released without being charged. He left Canada after Mr. Reyat was arrested in 1988 and was later reported to be living in Pakistan. Mr. Parmar was killed in 1992 in India. Indian police maintain he was shot during an encounter with a group of militants. Khalistani supporters have said he was tortured by police and subsequently died.
Tehelka reported that Mr. Parmar was caught by Punjab police officer Chandi in Jammu province in September, 1992 and interrogated from Oct. 9 to Oct. 14. Mr. Chandi told the magazine that Mr. Parmar was killed in police custody on the order of senior officers.
Lakhbir Singh Brar came to Canada in April, 1985, as a refugee. He was identified as a national security risk by Canada's security service and deported in the early 1990s. He is reported to be living in Pakistan and is wanted by the Indian government for minor offences.
The Punjab Human Rights Organization, a non-governmental organization based in Chandigarh, put together a report of the confession, and two members of the organization accompanied Mr. Chandi to Canada.
Air India inquiry spokesman Michael Tansey declined to comment on the report of a meeting with the commission to present Mr. Parmar's confession. "We're aware of this article [in Tehelka] and we will explore this and any other allegations when the hearings resume in the fall," Mr. Tansey said in an interview.