The place are you able to slaughter a whole lot of individuals and get away with it? Solely in Canada, the place authorities bungled the prospect to cease an apparent plot to bomb Air India Flight 182 after which did not carry a single one of many brazen terrorists to justice. It was essentially the most preventable horror in our historical past, and we appear desperate to overlook it ever occurred — whilst extra violence brews from the extremists behind the worst Canadian terrorist assault ever.
That is episode 3 of season 2 of Canada Did What?! For earlier episodes and seasons please subscribe beneath.
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Canada Did What? Season 2, Episode 3 unedited transcript
Host, Tristin Hopper:
It’s June 4, 1984 in a distant space exterior Duncan, British Columbia, a city about an hour’s north of the provincial capital of Victoria.
Immediately, there’s a really loud explosion. A bomb has simply gone off — seemingly in the course of nowhere.
However just a few persons are there In reality, 5 persons are identified to have heard the explosion that day. The three males who set it off, and two brokers for the Canadian Safety Intelligence Service — principally our equal of the FBI.
The CSIS brokers have been there as a result of they have been surveilling a terror suspect, Talwinder Singh Parmar. He was one of many three males who detonated the bomb.
Parmar had immigrated to Canada in 1970, and he wasn’t notably shy about his love of terrorism.
The CSIS brokers had adopted Parmar from his residence in Metro Vancouver. They’d seen him board the ferry to Nanaimo, and meet up with a person named Inderjit Singh Reyat
The investigators witnessing that explosion must be the tip level of the story, proper? You’ve received two Authorities of Canada counter-terrorism brokers who witness some guys stroll right into a distant space and set off a bomb.
Once you’re doing correct counter-terrorism you don’t even need to get this far. You need to catch a perpetrator method again after they’re nonetheless devising their terror plot. Or on the very least, after they begin making an attempt to accumulate bomb-making supplies.
You positively don’t wait till they have already got the information and wherewithal to supply useful explosives. And are literally doing checks the place they blow stuff up.
That is the place I ought to point out that regulation enforcement had already suspected {that a} important bomb plot was taking form in Canada. They knew there was most likely a terrorist assault being deliberate by a militant group of Sikhs.
Months earlier than, informants had informed each the RCMP and the Vancouver Police that B.C.-based extremists like Parmar have been intending to construct a bomb with a view to smuggle it into the cargo maintain of an airliner. The extremists have been supporters of a Sikh separatist motion, that hated the federal government in India.
However the story doesn’t finish right here in woods exterior Duncan. Right here’s what really occurred. The 2 CSIS brokers disagreed on what they’d heard. Certainly one of them thought it was an explosive, however the different thought that it may need simply been a gun shot; lots of people go looking round Duncan, B.C.
The 2 brokers went into the woods to see if they might discover a shell casing. They give the impression of being round for lower than a minute, discover nothing, and depart.
So CSIS did nothing.
And that was a horrible, horrible mistake.
Three weeks later, a bomb very very similar to the one which exploded that day exterior Duncan, B.C., blew up within the cargo maintain of Air India Flight 182 from Toronto to Mumbai, with scheduled stops alongside the best way in Montreal, London England and Delhi.
The Indians had named the aircraft the Emperor Kanishka. It was a Boeing 747, the most important passenger airliner on the planet on the time. By the point it received over the coast of Eire, nearly all of its seats have been stuffed. That’s the place it exploded and fell into the Atlantic Ocean
There have been no survivors.
It was — and nonetheless is — the worst terror assault in Canadian historical past.
By June 4, the day of that loud exploding sound in Duncan, B.C., three weeks earlier, it’s a superb guess that a lot of the 307 passengers aboard Air India Flight 182 had already finalized their journey plans. All of the whereas, unbeknownst to them, Canada-based terrorists have been testing the bomb that might take their lives.
So, what in regards to the guys who set off that bomb exterior Duncan, B.C.? CSIS knew their names; that’s why they have been following them. So, clearly they have been shortly arrested, convicted they usually’re now spending the remainder of their lives within the Canadian equal of a supermax jail someplace — proper?
Nope. No person was ever held accountable for the Air India Bombing. No person.
Quite the opposite — even at present you can find situations proper right here in Canada of Sikh extremists celebrating the Air India terrorists as heroes.
That is the story of one of many darkest and most ignominious moments in Canadian historical past. This complete factor is terrible. And above all, it was preventable. Extraordinarily preventable. In all probability some of the preventable tragedies of the twentieth century. Each single step of this story is somebody screwing up, some apparent warning being neglected, some tragedy-preventing motion going undone.
The Air India terror assault illustrates absolutely the worst this nation has to supply in nearly each method. And it led to a whole lot of harmless individuals – together with 82 youngsters – being murdered in some of the horrific methods attainable.
I’m Tristin Hopper and that is Canada Did What?! And at present, we’re going to cowl what is sort of definitely the largest institutional failure in Canadian historical past. A failure that casts disgrace on establishments together with the RCMP, CSIS, the federal government itself.
And it’s a failure that, I’m very sorry to say, we’ve not atoned for in any respect. Most Canadians don’t even realize it ever occurred. That is the story of how just about a whole nation can simply indifferently watch an act of mass homicide unfold, after which faux it by no means occurred.
There isn’t any good option to die in a aircraft crash, however the least horrible method is for it to occur immediately. Managed flight into terrain. If it’s important to be in a deadly aircraft crash, that’s the way you need to go. One second every part’s superb, then you definitely’re slamming right into a mountain at 900 kilometres per hour and also you’re lifeless earlier than you even know something’s fallacious.
Air India Flight 182 was not that. The plane skilled what is known as explosive decompression. Principally, the bomb precipitated the aircraft to fragment into million of items in a cut up second. All air site visitors controllers heard was a gust of wind from one of many Emperor Kanishka’s cockpit microphones after which nothing.
The explosion itself killed some passengers, nevertheless it didn’t kill everybody.
One second they’d been sitting subsequent to household on their strategy to London, England. The following, they have been burned and had damaged limbs. However they have been alive, they have been acutely aware they usually have been tumbling uncontrollably by means of freezing high-altitude air, the power of the wind tearing their garments from their our bodies as they fell.
The explosion occurred about 10 kilometres within the sky. At that top, the air temperature is about minus 40. And it’s a couple of three-minute freefall to the bottom; some passengers have been possible conscious of what was occurred to them proper till they hit the floor of the ocean at terminal velocity.
The ultimate demise toll, with passengers and crew, was 329 individuals.
For context, in the entire of 1985, 667 individuals have been murdered in Canada, not together with these killed within the bombing. So this one assault was equal to 6 months of homicides in the entire nation.
It’s the worst act of mass homicide in our historical past, and the opposite contenders aren’t even shut. In reality, for those who tally up each single gun and knife bloodbath of the final 50 years – the 1989 Ecole Polytechnique bloodbath, the 2020 Nova Scotia mass shootings, a terrorist bombing of Yellowknife’s Big mine in 1992 – you’re fewer than 100 victims whole.
The best way Air India crashed additionally meant that its restoration was notably horrific. There’s not numerous gore when a aircraft slams into the facet of a mountain. However the disintegration of Air India Flight 182 rained shattered corpses throughout an enormous part off the Irish coast..
For hours, service provider seamen and Royal Air Drive helicopter crews labored to drag as many battered and oil-slicked our bodies from the ocean as they might. They recovered 131 victims; nearly all girls and youngsters. Simply 13 male our bodies have been ever discovered.
A Royal Air Drive diver, Mark Tait, would later describe repeatedly leaping into seawater the place the floor with plagued by chunks of flesh and physique elements. At one level, he reached for the physique of an older girl in a sari, just for her corpse to come back aside in his palms.
A reporter went to the warehouse in Cork, Eire, the place our bodies have been being laid out for identification. The reporter noticed one official break down and scream “that’s sufficient! I’ve had sufficient!”
The Air India bombing is commonly handled as an occasion whose connection to Canada is incidental.
Positive, it took off from Canada and was destroyed by Canada-based terrorists, nevertheless it was an Indian plane headed to India, destroyed by an Indian terrorist motion and it largely had Indians aboard, proper? The primary Canadian information experiences of the tragedy did certainly say that the victims have been “largely Indians.”
However they weren’t largely Indians. They have been Canadians. The aircraft was largely Canadians: 268 of them.
Visitor, Kim Bolan:
We all know in these early hours after the bombing that, uh, prime minister Mulroney referred to as Rajiv Gandhi, the Indian prime minister, to supply condolences for the lack of his individuals, they usually have been our individuals, and even the prime minister didn’t know that on the time or appeared to know that on the time.
Tristin Hopper:
The catastrophe left empty chairs at public faculties throughout Ontario and Quebec. Concordia College misplaced two professors. Montreal’s Loyola Excessive Faculty misplaced a trainer who had been voted among the many metropolis’s finest. The Worldwide Growth Analysis Centre, a Crown company based mostly in Ottawa, misplaced certainly one of its board of administrators.
The bombing befell in late June, simply as college was letting out for the summer time. So this flight, particularly, was crammed with moms taking their Canadian-born youngsters again to the previous nation to satisfy prolonged family members, perhaps for the primary time, to spend their summer time trip with them.
In India, airport terminals grew to become crammed with screaming and sobbing because the information was communicated to households who had deliberate to welcome their Canadian cousins with fruit baskets and flower garlands.
Whereas on the Canadian facet, a number of fathers who had wanted to remain behind for work discovered the surprising information that their whole households had simply been worn out.
Trilok Soni, of Montreal, misplaced his spouse and three youngsters. Toronto’s Ramesh Kapoor misplaced his spouse and two daughters.
Let’s take a look at who did this. As a result of the truth is the perpetrators knew what they have been doing. The victims of Air India weren’t collateral harm. They have been the meant goal. The individuals who did this needed warehouses crammed with our bodies they usually needed airport lobbies crammed with screaming and sobbing households. And that’s precisely what they received.
They’d really needed to take down two airliners that day. The one cause the second bombing didn’t occur is as a result of the timing was off. A second bomb despatched from Canada, and meant for Air India Flight 301 – one other totally loaded 747 – as a substitute blew up within the baggage dealing with space of Japan’s Narita Worldwide Airport, killing two baggage handlers. As an alternative of greater than 300 lifeless, the terrorists have been planning to kill greater than 600 individuals.
And it was all to be achieved supposedly for the reason for an Indian separatist motion.
Bolan:
When the bombings occurred, I used to be a rookie reporter right here in Vancouver. We have been all referred to as into the newsroom. We fairly effectively knew straight away that this was possible Vender, Parmar and his group. It wasn’t like, it was an enormous thriller to us as a result of the warning indicators had been there.
Canada’s worst-ever mass homicide was dedicated by individuals who need to take a lot of what’s at the moment the Indian state of Punjab and switch it into an unbiased nation often called Khalistan, Land of the Pure.
However Khalistanis are pushing for a rustic that may be very totally different than the form of sovereignty being sought by your common Quebec separatist or Scottish nationalist.
Khalistan, by most definitions, can be an ethnically cleansed Sikh theocracy; perhaps there can be just a few Hindus and Muslims in Khalistan, however they do what they’re informed. And proper from the start, the entire Khalistani motion was deeply inflected with violence.
Simply take a look at the symbology. The religious head of the Khalistani motion is a man named Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.
Within the Nineteen Eighties Bhindranwale led an armed occupation of the Golden Temple advanced in Amritsar – that’s like The Vatican for Sikhism – and used it as a base to stage shootings and terrorist assaults all through Punjab. A whole lot of individuals have been murdered: Hindus, average Sikhs, and, notably, peace activists calling for Hindu-Sikh brotherhood.
Visitor, Ujjal Dosanjh:
there was no query that there was terrorism and extremism, violence taking place from inside the temple that was affecting the lifetime of Punjab. I used to be there in December ’83, January ’84.
So I’m simply doing an image for you. And I’m going there and my sons needed to, you we went to the temple simply to point out my children the temple. And we’re strolling out of there and after having the communal meals, langar, and there are two or three younger males carrying two rifles, one on every shoulder and one of their palms. between the three of them, about 9 rifles hanging round them. And my center son says to me, dad, why are they carrying weapons within the temple? So he doesn’t communicate any Punjabi, at the very least didn’t at the moment. So I mentioned, why don’t you go ask him? So he went and requested them. And naturally they didn’t communicate English. And that’s how I received speaking to them. They usually then insisted that I’m going see Sant Longa, the Pindramala.
And I mentioned, effectively, I actually had no intention of seeing him. I’m really on the lookout for Longoal, who’s on this subsequent constructing that I’m going to. They usually mentioned, no, no, you could see this one. That is the true saint. Anyway, they insisted. And I believed, effectively, why not? You so we went and we argued for about an hour backwards and forwards and.
He used to insist that you must develop your hair and for those who for those who don’t develop your hair, you’re a bastard Sikh. You’re not an actual Sikh that he used to make use of that time period. So we had we needed to go at one another for about an hour after which I left.
Individuals have been so afraid even the police wouldn’t contact the our bodies. That they had their very own senior police officer killed within the temple advanced, his physique was thrown on the gate, out on the gate, and the police wouldn’t contact the physique for at the very least six to eight hours till he really permitted them to come back and choose up the physique. That’s how a lot worry there was. And I’m speaking about 83. That had occurred earlier than I received there. So, you realize, these things was taking place lengthy earlier than.
Hopper:
When Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered a army assault on the Golden Temple to filter out Bhindranwale’s males, the violence descended right into a full-blown insurgency. It culminated just a few months later with Indira Gandhi murdered by the hands of her Sikh bodyguards, in an obvious retribution for the raid.
Within the wake of any main nationwide tragedy, it’s pure to start out questioning the way it may have been foreseen and prevented. However with the Air India bombing, it’s the reverse: It’s nonetheless arduous to parse by means of the main points of the plot and know that it wasn’t prevented.
I discussed earlier that intelligence officers knew effectively forward of time that Sikh extremists have been making an attempt to explode an airplane. Properly, what if I informed you that it was much more particular than that. Air India believed they have been the meant goal, and had even requested further safety for the particular plane that ended up blowing aside off the coast of Eire.
Rescuers have been nonetheless pulling our bodies out of the ocean when Canada’s then transport minister, Don Mazankowski, needed to admit that Air India Flight 182 had taken off from an airport that had further police available for the specific function of stopping any Air India planes from blowing up.
Extremely, baggage had really been pulled off Air India Flight 182 on account of fears it was a safety danger. At just about the precise second that regulation enforcement was opening the baggage beneath safe circumstances solely to search out they’d saved the aircraft from innocent electronics like garments irons and radios, the Emperor Kanishka was being blown up by the suitcase bomb they’d missed.
Bolan:
They weren’t alleged to test your baggage in, uh, for a flight that you simply didn’t have a confirmed reservation on. Proper. And that’s what occurred with two baggage, uh, on. Ju, uh, June twenty second, 1985 at Vancouver Airport. Uh, so these guys who have been checking them in have been very persistent and, um, you realize, they received them by means of, proper.
Uh, they form of hassled the agent proper on the counter. Um, now the opposite massive factor was in each circumstances, the passenger who was listed on the manifest for the connecting flight, which have been then Canadian Air, you realize. Canadian Pacific Airways, which individuals don’t even know what it’s anymore ’trigger it now not exists.
However the each of the baggage have been checked into CP air flights that have been destined to land and join with Air India flights. So it was, you realize, I can think about there have been those that flew on the CP air flight from Vancouver to Tokyo and from Vancouver to Toronto, who discovered afterwards they’d a bomb on their aircraft.
Are you able to think about what that might do to you?
Hopper:
So we are actually at a number of ranges of institutional failure: the shrugged off explosion within the woods, the bomb plot that authorities and the airline knew about however fell wanting stopping. The precise bomb getting on the airplane regardless of supposedly enhanced safety
However wait.
It will get worse.
Canadian officers kind of knew that this was all simply safety theatre, and possibly wasn’t going to cease the form of bomb plot being deliberate. There’s been two official inquiries into the Air India catastrophe, and the latest one concluded that the federal government knew that Air India’s baggage screening protocols have been “have been insufficient and have been based mostly on unreliable know-how and untrained screeners.”
Bolan:
The aircraft landed once more in Montreal to choose up extra passengers earlier than it headed off over the Atlantic. Uh, there was a bomb sniffing canine on the airport that wasn’t referred to as to obligation, despite the fact that the canine was there and obtainable. So there have been so many missed alternatives to catch this earlier than the devastating factor occurred.
Hopper:
The primary inquiry was a bit extra blunt: “nearly every part that would have gone fallacious did go fallacious.”
However most likely essentially the most conspicuous warning, by far, greater than the plot that officers knew about and greater than bombs being constructed and examined within the woods of British Columbia is that Canada had allowed itself to grow to be a completely writhing hotbed of Sikh extremism.
Bolan:
There was a small group of militants linked to a terrorist group referred to as the Kelsa, which, uh, began right here in Vancouver by a person named Dering Parmar, they usually have been plotting one thing extra nefarious, which was revenge towards what was then the federal government owned airline. Now these militants. It’s not like they have been very cloak and dagger.
They have been form of out locally saying what they believed. Uh, there have been additionally lots of people that had been threatened by them and their supporters, together with Ujjal Dosanjh, who would go on to grow to be the premier of BC and a federal cupboard minister earlier than the air bombing. He was viciously overwhelmed and practically died of his accidents. And but police regionally didn’t appear to take these occasions critically. They form of handled it as like a dispute amongst a group. Versus felony acts being dedicated upon Canadian residents right here in Vancouver, which was the truth is the case.
Hopper:
The architect of the Air India bombing, as established by two Authorities of Canada inquiries, is Talwinder Singh Parmar: He was the man being tracked by CSIS after they heard the check explosion exterior Duncan.
However he’s not some lone wolf. On the time, he was the pinnacle of Babbar Khalsa, an lively Khalistani terror group in India, and he was fundraising for it and directing its operations from the protection of Canada. In 1984, individuals who spoke Punjabi may hear him preaching that “Indian planes will fall from the sky.”
He was really needed in India for homicide, however the Canadian authorities had refused his extradition. Letting him stay at giant Canada would out to be one other tragic institutional worry.
He wasn’t the one one. The 12 months earlier than the Air India bombing, you could possibly have seen a fellow Vancouver-based Babbar Khalsa member, Ajaib Singh Bagri, ship a startlingly violent speech on the founding convention of the World Sikh Group at Madison Sq. Backyard.
“They are saying that Hindus are our brothers! However I offer you my most solemn assurance that, till we kill 50,000 Hindus, we won’t relaxation!” he mentioned in Punjabi.
Dosanjh:
What was taking place right here at the moment and bear in mind that is finish of ’83 November, December of ’83, there was hate being spewed on radio stations that have been operating off that phone line from Bellingham into Canada they have been spewing hate towards the Hindus, calling all of them kinds of names and making an attempt to divide the group that had been gained. Now, most individuals don’t know till in regards to the Seventies — when the primary Sikh temple was in-built Vancouver from 1908 to about 1970 Hindus and Sikhs prayed on the Sikh temple collectively and since there was by no means any distinction between the communities. And so then you definitely had this schism that was being perpetrated inside the group right here.
Hopper:
And lest you suppose all this violent extremism was being carried out on the down low, Khalistanis within the Vancouver space have been prepared to assault and intimidate anybody who opposed them.
Probably the most well-known instance being Ujjal Dosanjh, who would later grow to be BC premier and federal Minister of Well being. An outspoken average Sikh, in Feb. 1985 Dosanjh was attacked and nearly killed exterior his regulation workplace by a person wielding an iron bar … and Dosanjh would proceed to obtain violent threats within the years after the Air India bombing. The person who was charged with attacking him — however was acquitted — was later convicted of making an attempt to assassinate a Punjabi minister who was visiting Canada for a marriage.
Dosanjh:
Air India occurred in February, June ’85. I used to be attacked in February ’85.
And I wrote letters to the attorneys basic of all of the provinces and of Canada and the prime minister, primarily saying, I’m afraid that there may be extra violence locally except you do one thing, except the police and the regulation enforcement and the politicians take some steps to at least one, implement the regulation extra stringently to at the very least present some public management on the difficulty in order that the hate is condemned. Extremism is condemned. I didn’t hear from anyone apart from perhaps one particular person once I despatched these letters. And it was in April I despatched that letter and lo and behold in June Air India occurred.
Hopper:
Now you could possibly do an entire podcast collection on the utter failure of Canadian authorities to efficiently prosecute the Air India bombers.
So let’s simply say that essentially the most complete e book on the authorized aftermath, by Kim Bolan, is known as: Lack of Religion, How the Air India Bombers Bought Away With Homicide.
Bolan:
The most important downside that the investigation had in line with the RCMP, was the erasure by CSIS of recordings that it had made. Of the particular suspects speaking in code the times and weeks earlier than the bombing, they usually didn’t need to flip these over to the RCMP due to this dangerous blood between the 2 businesses, they usually erased all of those recordings.
What was left have been simply notes that individuals who had listened to the recordings made. So the notes have been, and form of a log, proper, of the totally different calls and who was calling who on the time. So, I imply, that might’ve been essentially the most compelling proof recordings of the individuals plotting it. Um, and, you realize, that the, the RCMP, you realize, and the general public inquiry later have been very, very important of that call as most likely the largest factor.
Hopper:
After the bombing, the home of the presumed mastermind, Talwinder Singh Parmar, was raided and he was questioned. However expenses have been dropped on account of lack of proof, with Parmar complaining to the press that he was being harassed.
Finally, he would handle to slide out of Canada fully and return to India. He was killed in an alleged shootout with police in 1992.
The one particular person ever efficiently prosecuted for the crime was Inderjit Singh Reyat, the Duncan-based bombmaker. And the cost that netted him essentially the most jail time was perjury, for refusing to call his accomplices. He’s had full parole since 2017.
There have been clearly co-conspirators. However the one alleged conspirators ever delivered to trial – two fellow Babbar Khalsa members – have been in the end declared not responsible on account of lack of proof.
Bolan:
I sat by means of that trial each single day, albeit I knew numerous the those that have been testifying. I knew the danger that they have been taking, and, you realize, I consider them. However in the end the decide poked all these holes with out actually trying on the, you realize, overarching theme, which was individuals have been risking their lives to inform the reality in a BC courtroom.
You already know, why would they try this? You already know that. However as we all know, anybody who’s lined court docket is aware of witnesses are by no means excellent after such an extended time period there elapses in reminiscence. Um, so no proof goes to be, uh, you realize, excellent. And, uh, could, they could make slight errors, however each single witness, uh, that had agreed to cooperate with the crown primarily had tales that matched up about who was behind it.
So I believed it was a compelling circumstantial case and that there ought to have been a conviction. Proper. However, uh, the decide noticed otherwise.
Hopper:
One issue fuelling numerous the “lack of proof” downside was that any witness who was going to testify towards them was liable to be killed. That’s what occurred to Vancouver-based writer Tara Singh Hayer, a vocal anti-extremist and a police witness within the Air India case. He was shot and paralyzed in 1988. After which shot once more, fatally this time, in 1998. I ought to point out that Hayer – very similar to Air India Flight 182 itself – was beneath particular RCMP safety on the time of his demise.
Bolan: A colleague of mine, um, Tara Singha, who was each a journalist. Uh, and likewise somebody who had agreed to cooperate with the police as a result of he had some very incriminating details about one of many suspects. He was assassinated, proper, November 18th, 1998, and him and I had shared various demise threats within the months main as much as this, and he all the time informed me, you realize, I used to be a lot youthful.
Don’t fear, you realize, it’ll be superb. This implies you’re doing all your job as a result of individuals. Are, you realize, they’re feeling the warmth primarily. Proper. Um, you realize, in order that was simply one other turning level for me the place I believed, wow, you realize, somebody has misplaced their life for making an attempt to inform the reality about this case.
And in the end when it got here to the trial, Tara’s proof was excluded. You already know, ’trigger they’d recordings of him, uh, as a result of the decide deemed it was too prejudicial to the defendants. Given the best way he died. So now Tara’s case has grow to be one other inheritor India in that, you realize, it’s the one assassination of a journalist.
Dosanjh:
Whereas earlier than June of ’84, there was hatred and extremism being preached, violence being preached within the papers, on the radio, nevertheless it wasn’t being practised.
After June of ’84, you noticed individuals started to assault individuals who didn’t agree with them. They started to throw newspapers out of the outlets, newspapers that didn’t agree with them. They usually started to assault writers.
They started to threaten journalists who would have an opposing view or report one thing that they didn’t like. And they’d threaten to kill them or kidnap their youngsters. That started to occur after June of 84. And a few individuals have been overwhelmed up. imply, have a Punjabi author who is not any extra with us. He wrote a chunk about Pandhra Wale.
He was overwhelmed up in broad daylight in downtown Vancouver. After which, you realize, there was a good friend of mine who was additionally man. Rampuri was the author. Yeah. After which Darshan Gill, who used to run a newspaper, which was kind of peaceable, nonviolent, extra secular strategy. His residence was firebombed.
And naturally, they got here and assaulted me as a result of I used to be most likely the at the moment, the kind of most outstanding voice opposing them. I imply, had some standing. I used to be a lawyer. I used to be an activist. had run twice for the NDP. So I form of had some credentials as a public little bit of a public determine. And they also would threaten me and write nasty hateful stuff.
Hopper:
So to evaluate, we grew to become a protected haven for a violent extremist motion, ignored that they have been promising to commit wholesale slaughter … after which failed so arduous on primary regulation enforcement that we not solely did not cease an simply preventable terrorist assault, however we couldn’t even maintain anybody to account for the worst act of mass-murder in our historical past. It was a catastrophic failure of a number of Canadian establishments that led to a whole lot of deaths of harmless individuals and disgraced our nation.
Bolan:
For sure, it didn't have to occur. We all know that it’s been effectively documented, once more, by Justice Main and his, uh, suggestions within the public inquiry. And lots of issues have modified and improved when it comes to, you realize, airline techniques and, uh, you realize, how flights are booked and, you realize, now there wouldn’t be a suitcase getting on a aircraft with no passenger.
So there are, there have been numerous enhancements, however a few of his suggestions have. Sort of collected mud through the years too. Uh, that was, uh, what among the attorneys who have been concerned within the public inquiry informed me lately. Uh, so, you realize, we study, however we additionally proceed to disregard as a result of, you realize, it’s simply human nature and it’s Canadian nature I believe as effectively.
You already know, if one thing’s not in entrance of you entrance and heart at that second, it’s straightforward to disregard.
Hopper:
So was Canada at the very least shamed into altering its methods in spite of everything this?
Uh, no. We discovered nothing. Like … in any respect.
For one factor, we kind of forgot that this ever occurred in any respect.
Let’s examine the Air India bombings to different main acts of terrorism.
The September eleventh assaults in the US. 2011’s Oslo and Utoya assaults in Norway. The 7/7 bombings in London in 2005. Individuals nonetheless bear in mind the place they have been after they occurred, and the tragedies grew to become a hinge level in how the international locations considered themselves.
That … didn’t occur in Canada after Air India.
Simply take a look at how the Authorities of Canada marks the anniversary of the tragedy. Is it referred to as Air India Tragedy day? By no means Once more Day? Nope. Each June 23 we mark Nationwide Day for Remembrance of Victims of Acts of Terrorism. A generic commentary of anybody, wherever who may need been killed by terrorism of some sort.
In 2023, a ballot by the Angus Reid Institute requested Canadians in the event that they knew one thing – something – in regards to the Air India bombing.
Of the Canadians youthful than 34 years previous, 61 per cent mentioned they’d “by no means heard of this till now” when requested what the phrases “Air India bombing” meant to them.
And Canada nonetheless has an enormous downside with Khalistani extremism, with the Canada of 2025 trying an terrible lot just like the Canada of 1985.
Dosanjh:
It’s a lot worse. It’s a lot worse. Earlier than 1984, the imagery wasn’t as violent. The phrases could have been hateful, extra hateful than violent. However since June 84, the imagery has grow to be rather more violent, the rhetoric has grow to be rather more violent and extremist. And it had died down as I mentioned, besides you now had the uptick throughout Mr. Trudeau’s time.
You don’t hear from some other temple within the province, proper? You solely hear it from Surrey as a result of in Surrey they beat the moderates to pulp and the average merely bodily, the average merely left as a result of the police wouldn’t, know, police can’t go into the temple 24-7 and stand guard over individuals’s security. So individuals primarily left. And you’ve got parts that management sure temples.
Hopper:
In the event you stay round Vancouver or the Higher Toronto Space, it’s not arduous to search out Khalistani flags, Khalistani billboards or Khalistani demonstrations … typically overtly glorifying violence.
Sikh temples in Surrey have been holding memorials to Talwinder Singh Parmar solely a decade after the Air India bombing. His portrait hangs inside a number of Sikh temples, And in 2015 one Gurdwar in Surrey, B.C., commissioned an enormous triumphalist portrait of Parmar.
Vaisakhi is a Punjabi harvest competition that falls round mid-April. And Vaisakhi celebrations round Metro Vancouver have been infamous for that includes parade floats, banners and even whole pavilions celebrating Khalistani acts of terror.
Within the Surrey Vaisakhi parade, particularly, it grew to become routine for the occasion to function banners and floats commemorating the fear mastermind Talwinder Singh Parmar as a martyr.
And never solely has the Canadian authorities stored ignoring violent Khalistani extremism as a menace, however political leaders routinely indulge and even rejoice them. With essentially the most charitable rationalization being that they don’t even know that they’re doing it.
Dosanjh:
Our legislators have principally mentioned, these brown guys with beards and non-beards, they'll go combat one another, kill one another, who cares? I imply, I’m not saying they’re saying it overtly, however that have to be the considering. In any other case, why wouldn’t politicians get up and say, you realize what? This isn't the form of Canada we would like.
Like, I don’t need that form of Canada. I got here to Canada in 1968. It was totally different form of Canada. I imply, sure, there have been, you realize, issues, however I believe we’ve extra issues at present than we had then.
Hopper:
In 2023, it grew to become a nationwide scandal when Sikh nationalist Hardeep Singh Nijjar was murdered in a success job exterior a Surrey Sikh temple – an occasion that Canada swiftly blamed on brokers performing for India. However right here’s some background on Nijjar. He was a needed terrorist in India on account of his alleged affiliation with the Khalistan Tiger Drive. And on the time of his homicide, he was topic to an lively Interpol warrant.
How was he in Canada? He got here right here in 1997 on a false passport — and was granted citizenship 10 years later.
Anyway, it actually places issues into perspective that the Canadian Home of Commons held a second of silence for Nijjar on the primary anniversary of his homicide.
Clip of Speaker of the Home Greg Fergus: Following discussions amongst representatives of all events within the Home, I perceive there’s an settlement to look at a second of silence in reminiscence of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, assassinated in Surrey, British Columbia, one 12 months in the past at present.
Hopper:
Hey, what in regards to the Sikh temple the place Nijjar was shot? How did they mark his demise?
They’ve an enormous billboard placing his portrait subsequent to that of the Air India bomber Talwinder Singh Parmar, and declaring them each martyrs.
The billboard additionally explicitly referred to as for the assassination of Indian authorities officers on Canadian soil. It learn “assassination needed,” after which listed the names and portraits of diplomats based mostly at each India’s embassy and its Vancouver consulate.
And a second of silence for Hardeep Nijjar is way from the one time Khalistani extremism has pervaded the highest echelons of Canadian federal politics.
Bear in mind in 2018, when then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a completely disastrous journey to India? The occasion has been remembered largely for Trudeau’s embarrassingly elaborate costumes: He stored displaying as much as occasions the place his Indian hosts have been all in black fits, however he was clad in gold-embroidered frock coats like an Indian Prince Charming on his marriage ceremony day.
However Indian officers took a a lot darker view of the go to. They’d been hoping it may very well be a possibility to debate all of the unchecked Khalistani extremism in Canada. And as a substitute, you get a major minister displaying up dressed like a range present presenter and dancing the bhangra.
Indian suspicions weren’t helped when the Canadian delegation introduced alongside a literal convicted terrorist to certainly one of their occasions.
Among the many attendees at a gala in Mumbai was Jaspar Singh Atwal. In 1986, the 12 months after the Air India bombing, Atwal had been in on that plot I discussed that tried to assassinate an Indian cupboard minister visiting Canada for a marriage.
Dosanjh:
Trudeau gave a lot oxygen to them, he didn’t perceive the group. so that you then instantly, they have been the face of the Indo-Canadian group. Not simply the Sikh group. I believe Trudeau and his individuals merely ignored the remainder of the complete group besides the Khalistanis. Khalistanis grew to become the Indo-Canadian group for him.
You made issues worse since you introduced in a number of hundred thousand individuals a 12 months into the nation. And at our mission in Delhi, we didn’t have the capability to display screen one million individuals a 12 months coming into the nation from India. So you have got now allowed unscreened guests, college students, immigrants into the nation and you’ve got extortions. Proper?
It’s only a litany of woes and errors that Mr. Trudeau made and we’re paying for it.
Hopper:
And for those who actually desire a sense of how a lot the Khalistani difficulty has penetrated Canadian politics, take into account tthat the previous chief of the federal NDP was an Air India truther — like a 9/11 truther he refused to consider the official story that it was Parmar and his militant Punjabi separatist co-conspirators.
When Singh first entered onto the nationwide scene as chief of the NDP, he mentioned in a CBC interview that we don’t know who the true perpetrator of the Air India bombing even is.
Clip of Jagmeet Singh: “I don’t know who’s accountable however I believe we have to discover out who’s accountable.”
Hopper:
As an Ontario politician, Singh had been denied entry into India in 2013 due to his alleged sympathies for the Khalistani trigger. The 12 months prior, Singh had publicly referred to as on Canada to strain India into commuting the demise sentence of Balwant Singh Rajoana, a Khalistani terrorist who had helped organized the assassination of the chief minister of Punjab in 1995. Principally the equal of murdering a sitting provincial premier.
This story isn’t simply in regards to the failure of Canada to cease an avoidable terrorist assault. It’s in regards to the abject failure of Canadian establishments even at present to confront the deadly state of affairs that led to that bombing.
In simply the previous few years, the seen extremism coming from Canadian Khalistanis is reaching unnerving ranges as dangerous because the time of the bombing. In 2023, a pro-Khalistani parade in Brampton, Ont. featured a float depicting the 1984 homicide of Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi.
A large blood-covered effigy of Gandhi was depicted along with her arms up as two males in camo fatigues pointed weapons at her. “Revenge,” learn an indication.
We’ve even began getting teams of flag-waving Khalistanis simply overtly attacking Hindu temples. It grew to become worldwide information in November, 2024 when a routine Indian consular occasion at Hindu Sabha Mandir temple in Brampton, Ont. attracted a bunch of males group bearing Khalistani flags.
As you possibly can hear on this video, they compelled their method by means of the gates and commenced attacking worshippers with flagpoles.
Dosanjh:
I’m afraid that we've been doing immigration fallacious. That’s why you have got these actions. You may have these actions in different communities as effectively. They survive as a result of we're doing immigration fallacious. We're…
We aren’t asking immigrants to make a dedication to this nation, dedication to the languages of this nation, dedication to the values, democratic values, the values of secularism, separation between church and state. Many of those guys, for those who go speak to them, they wouldn’t even know what I’m speaking about. Proper? And that’s why you have got these ghettos the place these sorts of mindsets perpetuate themselves. And actually, they’re turning their subsequent era into fanatics based mostly on their notion of the world. They don’t relate to this world as you and I’d be capable to. They’ll’t relate to this world. Typically they don’t need to relate to this world. They need to stay the best way they lived in a village in sixteenth century.
Whose fault is that? It’s the fault of our legislators who don’t say to immigrants after they come, please combine. Now integration has grow to be a grimy phrase. After I first got here to Canada, integration was a superb phrase. Now all people thinks integration means assimilation. No, it doesn’t. I can’t assimilate anyway. I’m brown.
Proper. However when it comes to values, when it comes to skill to choose up the newspaper and skim and make sense of it, watch information and make sense of it, exit to the park and have a dialog with different individuals and make sense of it. We have to have political management, public management. We don’t have public management. We haven’t.
Hopper:
In the meantime, for those who maintain a memorial to commemorate the Air India bombing, there’s a superb probability it will likely be crashed by Khalistanis pushing a conspiracy principle that the bombing was really a frame-up job by Indian intelligence.
As a result of whereas Canada refuses to study from the Air India bombing, the pro-terror Punjabi separatists appear to have discovered that they are often as brazen as they need — and nobody will cease them.
Bear in mind a kind of Babbar Khalsa members who went to trial as a co-conspirator? Right here’s a 2024 speech he gave at Surrey’s Guru Narak temple: “When all makes an attempt and means have failed, then it’s completely legitimate to choose up a sword. Then you possibly can take what’s rightfully yours.”
Dosanjh:
I consider that the politicians are a part of the issue. As a result of in politics, look, when you have 200 Khalistani votes in a selected writing, they'll make a distinction in an in depth race. So I don’t blame them in a way, however…
I all the time thought individuals go into politics to face for one thing, proper? If our leaders don’t stand for kind of a nonviolent, peaceable, socially cohesive diploma of social solidarity within the nation, then why go into politics?
Hopper:
It’d be tempting to finish this podcast on a optimistic notice. Some slight ray of hope, or perhaps an inspirational story about overcome adversity.
Sure, there are scholarships named after Air India victims. and significant lifelong friendships have been fashioned between bereaved households and the restoration employees who salvaged what they might of the victims from the ocean. And there’s a distant Irish village that’s grow to be a pilgrimage web site for the households of Air India victims. It’s the closest level of land to the place the aircraft got here down, and locals there nonetheless mark the tragedy yearly with a memorial ceremony.
However actually, there’s no completely happy ending to this story.
Probably the most disturbing findings from the second Air India inquiry, launched in 2010, was studying that lots of the households of the victims simply hadn’t recovered; the interim many years had simply been one endless nightmare.
Parkash Bedi misplaced his whole household. He testified earlier than the inquiry “it seems like I’m residing, however I’m like a lifeless physique transferring round.” Concordia College engineering professor Mahesh Sharma additionally misplaced his complete household. In 2024, 39 years after their deaths, he was interviewed by the Globe and Mail. “I’m 88 now. I’m on their lonesome.”
Bolan:
And numerous them have a extremely arduous time with the complete month of June as a result of, you realize, you simply grow to be haunted once more by all that occurred. And also you don’t overlook, despite the fact that it’s been 40 years. Um, you realize, however, uh, they’re actually so wonderful in that, uh, I don’t hear them, you realize, swearing or, you realize, condemning everybody.
They’re simply all the time making an attempt to get justice for his or her households. And now. As a result of we don’t suppose we’ll ever see one other prosecution that has amounted to commemorating them, uh, with everlasting memorials in Canada.
Hopper:
The Air India catastrophe is absolutely the worst of Canada distilled right into a single occasion. Complacency, sloth, ignorance, cowardice; it’s all there. Anyone who critically dives into the main points of the Air India bombing is rarely actually the identical afterwards.
And that’s perhaps why we’ve so completely forgotten about it. There are usually not actually any heroes. There’s no satisfying decision. There’s nothing to be pleased with.
It’s 329 individuals murdered in completely nightmarish circumstances, most of them as they have been on their option to joyous experiences like assembly a grandparent for the primary time or getting married.
And the individuals who noticed advantage and triumph in raining the our bodies of those harmless civilians into the North Atlantic not solely received away with it, however they’re arguably stronger than ever.
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