By IANS
Toronto : An inquiry panel probing the 1985 Kanishka airliner bombing is set to hear recordings of the purported confession by a prime suspect, who was later killed by Indian security forces in 1992. Two members of a Punjab human rights body have also flown in here to testify before the panel.
The inquiry headed by former Canadian Supreme Court justice John Major is to start hearing evidence on the matter Monday.
Two officials of the Punjab Human Rights Organisation are in the country to testify. Sarabjit Singh, secretary general to the organisation, and Rajvinder Singh Bains, the group’s legal counsel have flown to Canada for the testimony.
An inquiry spokesman confirmed Sunday that the two men will finally testify this week, but there was no word on whether the retired Indian policeman Harmail Singh Chandi, who had kept transcripts and tape recordings of the supposed confession will join them, Globe and Mail reported.
Air India’s Kanishka airliner, Flight 182, exploded while at an altitude of 31,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, south of Ireland, killing 329 passengers onboard, of whom 82 were children.
Talwinder Singh Parmar, head of the militant Sikh separatist group Babbar Khalsa, was arrested shortly after the deadly attack, but the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) didn’t have enough evidence to make any charges stick. He was freed and eventually slipped out of Canada.
However, it is claimed that Parmar confessed to the Indian police later that he was involved in bombing the airliner, as well as another bombing the same day that killed two baggage handlers at Narita airport in Japan.
There have been claims for years that Parmar made a statement about the bombing – possibly under torture.
A number of RCMP witnesses are scheduled to testify this week. A key question will be what use Canadian investigators can make of a statement that would likely be inadmissible in a Canadian court because of suspicions that it was obtained by torture.
There are fears already, among some of the families of the Air India bombing victims, that the inquiry could be sidetracked from other important issues by the tantalizing tale of the alleged Parmar confession.
Critics have long blamed turf battles between the RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) for the failure to avert the bombing.
Until Sep 11, 2001, the Kanishka bombing was the single deadliest terrorist attack involving aircraft. It is also the largest mass murder in Canadian history.
Last year, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced an inquiry, tasked with investigating if Canadian authorities underestimated the threat posed by Sikh extremists in Canada and if security agencies in the country impeded the prosecution and appointed the former Supreme Court judge to head the inquiry.
Till date only one man, Inderjit Singh Reyat, has been convicted in the affair. Two others, Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, were acquitted by a trial in Vancouver two years ago. All were associates of Parmar.