ASSASSINATED
Ripudaman Singh Malik, acquitted in Air India bombing, had many enemiesKim Bolan - July 15.2022- VANCOUVER SUN
When retired RCMP deputy commissioner Gary Bass was in charge of the terrorism investigation into the 1985 Air India bombing, he saw just how many enemies Ripudaman Singh Malik had.
© Provided by Vancouver Sun
Ripudaman Singh Malik (centre) leaves B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver, B.C. with his supporters after he was found not guilty in the bombing of an Air India flight 182 in 1985, Wednesday March 16, 2005. Malikl won't be getting back $9.2 million in legal fees. Malik had admitted in a B.C. Supreme Court case that it would be difficult for him to convince the government to cover his legal bills.
“I’m not privy to the ongoing investigations on Malik right now, but I can say that from years when I was that he was involved in a number of activities that might bring him into conflict with other people.”
Malik, who was acquitted of murder and conspiracy charges in 2005, 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.
Bass said it would be speculative to suggest who might be behind the fatal shooting of the 75-year former Sikh separatist leader.
© Jason Payne
“I’m not privy to the ongoing investigations on Malik right now, but I can say that from years when I was that he was involved in a number of activities that might bring him into conflict with other people.”
Malik, who was acquitted of murder and conspiracy charges in 2005, 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.
Bass said it would be speculative to suggest who might be behind the fatal shooting of the 75-year former Sikh separatist leader.
© Jason Payne
Various police agencies investigate the shooting death of Ripudaman Singh Malik at 8236 128th Street in Surrey, B.C. Thursday morning July 14, 2022. Malik, a well-known Surrey businessman, was acquitted in 2005 in the Air India Bombing, which killed hundreds of people in 1985.
“I just think there’s so many potential motives.”
Bass recalled 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.”
Homicide investigators are now trying to figure out who killed the controversial community leader, one-time terror suspect, wealthy businessman and founder of both the Khalsa Credit Union and Khalsa Schools.
© Jeff Vinnick
“I just think there’s so many potential motives.”
Bass recalled 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.”
Homicide investigators are now trying to figure out who killed the controversial community leader, one-time terror suspect, wealthy businessman and founder of both the Khalsa Credit Union and Khalsa Schools.
© Jeff Vinnick
Accused Air India bombers Ajaib Singh Bagri (left) and Ripudaman Singh Malik walk together through the exercise yard at the jail where they were in custody Nov. 1, 2004 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Was someone angry over Malik’s recent support for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, thanking him for work he had done on behalf of Sikhs in a letter he sent in January?
“I am writing you this to express my deer heartfelt gratitude for the unprecedented positive steps taken by yourself to redress long-reading Sikh demands and grievances,” Malik wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Postmedia.
Malik cited the elimination of blacklists like the one he was once on and the reopening of criminal cases for suspects in murders during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots as well as a declaration that the riots were in fact a genocide.
A door from the Air India jumbo jet floats off the Irish coast after a bomb exploded causing the plane to crash in 1985.
The Surrey senior had also attracted recent controversy for his links to printing the Sikh holy book — the Guru Granth Sahib — outside of India in contravention of a religious edict.
But several sources also said Malik has had a number of personal disputes with individuals over the years.
The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team issued a release later Thursday, confirming Malik was the victim and that the murder was targeted. And police believe a burned vehicle found near 82 Avenue and 122a Street is associated to the shooting.
“We are aware of Mr. Malik’s background, though at this time we are still working to determine the motive,” Sgt.Timothy Pierotti said. “Having occurred in a residential area, we are confident that witnesses exist that could help us further this investigation. We urge them to come forward immediately and without delay.”
In March 2005, Malik and his Babbar Khalsa associate Ajaib Singh Bagri, were acquitted by a B.C. Supreme Court judge of murder and conspiracy charges in Canada’s deadliest terror attack.
Air India — then the country’s national airline — was bombed to retaliate against the Indian government for its attack on Amritsar’s Golden Temple a year earlier, which left hundreds of Sikh pilgrims dead.
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Malik and Bagri were alleged to be part of a conspiracy of a small group of B.C. militants who placed suitcase bombs on two connecting flights leaving Vancouver airport. The deadly bags were tagged for Air India flights heading in opposite directions.
One blew up aboard Air India Flight 182 off the coast of Ireland on June 23, 1985, killing all 329 people aboard, most of them Canadian citizens. The other exploded in Tokyo’s Narita Airport as it was being transferred. Two baggage handlers were killed.
Inderjit Reyat, a former Vancouver Island man, was convicted of manslaughter in both bombings.
© Handout
Was someone angry over Malik’s recent support for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, thanking him for work he had done on behalf of Sikhs in a letter he sent in January?
“I am writing you this to express my deer heartfelt gratitude for the unprecedented positive steps taken by yourself to redress long-reading Sikh demands and grievances,” Malik wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Postmedia.
Malik cited the elimination of blacklists like the one he was once on and the reopening of criminal cases for suspects in murders during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots as well as a declaration that the riots were in fact a genocide.
A door from the Air India jumbo jet floats off the Irish coast after a bomb exploded causing the plane to crash in 1985.
The Surrey senior had also attracted recent controversy for his links to printing the Sikh holy book — the Guru Granth Sahib — outside of India in contravention of a religious edict.
But several sources also said Malik has had a number of personal disputes with individuals over the years.
The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team issued a release later Thursday, confirming Malik was the victim and that the murder was targeted. And police believe a burned vehicle found near 82 Avenue and 122a Street is associated to the shooting.
“We are aware of Mr. Malik’s background, though at this time we are still working to determine the motive,” Sgt.Timothy Pierotti said. “Having occurred in a residential area, we are confident that witnesses exist that could help us further this investigation. We urge them to come forward immediately and without delay.”
In March 2005, Malik and his Babbar Khalsa associate Ajaib Singh Bagri, were acquitted by a B.C. Supreme Court judge of murder and conspiracy charges in Canada’s deadliest terror attack.
Air India — then the country’s national airline — was bombed to retaliate against the Indian government for its attack on Amritsar’s Golden Temple a year earlier, which left hundreds of Sikh pilgrims dead.
Malik and Bagri were alleged to be part of a conspiracy of a small group of B.C. militants who placed suitcase bombs on two connecting flights leaving Vancouver airport. The deadly bags were tagged for Air India flights heading in opposite directions.
One blew up aboard Air India Flight 182 off the coast of Ireland on June 23, 1985, killing all 329 people aboard, most of them Canadian citizens. The other exploded in Tokyo’s Narita Airport as it was being transferred. Two baggage handlers were killed.
Inderjit Reyat, a former Vancouver Island man, was convicted of manslaughter in both bombings.
© Handout
Ripudaman Singh Malik serves up something at Khalsa school in this 1995 file picture.
After Malik’s acquittal, he resumed his leadership roles at the Khalsa Credit Union and Satnam Education Society which operates several Khalsa schools. And he moved from Vancouver to South Surrey. He continued to run a number of businesses including Papillon Eastern Imports — the clothing company based in the building where Malik was killed Thursday.
Malik also travelled to India for the first time since his acquittal in 2019 after the India government granted him a visa.
Former B.C. premier Ujjal Dosanjh first met Malik in the 1970s when the local South Asian community in Vancouver was very small.
Malik had started a clothing store, Papillon, in Gastown. The two men and their wives socialized. Malik was not yet a supporter of the Sikh separatist Khalistan movement, Dosanjh said Thursday.
Dosanjh did the legal work pro bono to help Malik set up his first two charities — the Satnam Trust and the Satnam Education Society.
“He was a ganja-smoking hippie who had a ponytail and then he turned into an extremist warrior. It’s hard to explain,” Dosanjh said. “Something happened to him.”
Dosanjh thinks that it’s possible Malik’s recent support of the Indian government he once reviled could be a motive in the murder.
“Whenever somebody is felled by violence, one is saddened,” Dosanjh said. “Mr. Malik ostensibly played with violence in his life and it has likely come back to haunt him.”
© Jason Payne
After Malik’s acquittal, he resumed his leadership roles at the Khalsa Credit Union and Satnam Education Society which operates several Khalsa schools. And he moved from Vancouver to South Surrey. He continued to run a number of businesses including Papillon Eastern Imports — the clothing company based in the building where Malik was killed Thursday.
Malik also travelled to India for the first time since his acquittal in 2019 after the India government granted him a visa.
Former B.C. premier Ujjal Dosanjh first met Malik in the 1970s when the local South Asian community in Vancouver was very small.
Malik had started a clothing store, Papillon, in Gastown. The two men and their wives socialized. Malik was not yet a supporter of the Sikh separatist Khalistan movement, Dosanjh said Thursday.
Dosanjh did the legal work pro bono to help Malik set up his first two charities — the Satnam Trust and the Satnam Education Society.
“He was a ganja-smoking hippie who had a ponytail and then he turned into an extremist warrior. It’s hard to explain,” Dosanjh said. “Something happened to him.”
Dosanjh thinks that it’s possible Malik’s recent support of the Indian government he once reviled could be a motive in the murder.
“Whenever somebody is felled by violence, one is saddened,” Dosanjh said. “Mr. Malik ostensibly played with violence in his life and it has likely come back to haunt him.”
© Jason Payne
Various police agencies investigate the shooting death of Ripudaman Singh Malik at 8236 128th Street in Surrey, B.C. Thursday morning July 14, 2022. Malik, a well-known Surrey businessman, was acquitted in 2005 in the Air India Bombing, which killed hundreds of people in 1985. Pictured is an unknown woman, identity shielded, at the crime scene.
Kash Heed, a longtime Vancouver police officer and former B.C. solicitor general, said the Malik murder bore similarities to recent gangland murders, where a masked shooter blasts away, escapes and a getaway car is later found burning.
“This has the earmarkings of a paid hit against an individual. We know of several of these hits on the Lower Mainland related to gang violence,” he said.
And he also said Malik’s recent support for the government of India might be the motive in the shooting.
“This has been such a prolonged event, I am actually surprised that he has survived so many years,” Heed said. “My belief that it is related to his political advocacy.”
Several people who testified against Malik in the Air India prosecution declined to comment Thursday though they privately expressed shock at his murder.
© Gerry KahrmannMar. 16, 2005. The judge in the Air India bombing trial found Ripudaman Singh Malik (left) not guilty of bombing Air India flight 182. He is escorted by a court sheriff and an unidentified man to a waiting car.
Malik lived in a waterfront house on Crescent Road in South Surrey with his wife Raminder, who is the only one on the land title.
Assessed at $6.8 million, the house is also listed as the home of some of Malik’s adult children on corporate records related to family businesses.
When a Vancouver Sun reporter visited Malik’s family in India in 2003 on the eve of the Air India trial, his elderly aunts said he 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.
Tenants on the Malik family estate in Ferozpur, Punjab enter the front gate.
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 — three sons and a daughter.
He ran and expanded Papillon, then started Khalsa Development and some numbered companies, though he was not listed as a director of any of them on current corporate records. And he was a founder of the Khalsa Credit Union and the two charities, Satnam Trust, which had its charitable status revoked in 2012, and the Satnam Education Society, of which Malik is still listed as a director.
Punjab MP Simranjit Singh Mann, a longtime pro-Khalistani leader told The Vancouver Sun in 2003 that he had been a friend of Malik’s family when he was in the police in Ferozpur.
“They were very law-abiding people and very devout Sikhs,” recalled Mann. “He comes from a very, very good family. I should know that because I used to call on them.”
kbolan@postmedia.com
twitter.com/kbolan
Kash Heed, a longtime Vancouver police officer and former B.C. solicitor general, said the Malik murder bore similarities to recent gangland murders, where a masked shooter blasts away, escapes and a getaway car is later found burning.
“This has the earmarkings of a paid hit against an individual. We know of several of these hits on the Lower Mainland related to gang violence,” he said.
And he also said Malik’s recent support for the government of India might be the motive in the shooting.
“This has been such a prolonged event, I am actually surprised that he has survived so many years,” Heed said. “My belief that it is related to his political advocacy.”
Several people who testified against Malik in the Air India prosecution declined to comment Thursday though they privately expressed shock at his murder.
© Gerry KahrmannMar. 16, 2005. The judge in the Air India bombing trial found Ripudaman Singh Malik (left) not guilty of bombing Air India flight 182. He is escorted by a court sheriff and an unidentified man to a waiting car.
Malik lived in a waterfront house on Crescent Road in South Surrey with his wife Raminder, who is the only one on the land title.
Assessed at $6.8 million, the house is also listed as the home of some of Malik’s adult children on corporate records related to family businesses.
When a Vancouver Sun reporter visited Malik’s family in India in 2003 on the eve of the Air India trial, his elderly aunts said he 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.
Tenants on the Malik family estate in Ferozpur, Punjab enter the front gate.
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 — three sons and a daughter.
He ran and expanded Papillon, then started Khalsa Development and some numbered companies, though he was not listed as a director of any of them on current corporate records. And he was a founder of the Khalsa Credit Union and the two charities, Satnam Trust, which had its charitable status revoked in 2012, and the Satnam Education Society, of which Malik is still listed as a director.
Punjab MP Simranjit Singh Mann, a longtime pro-Khalistani leader told The Vancouver Sun in 2003 that he had been a friend of Malik’s family when he was in the police in Ferozpur.
“They were very law-abiding people and very devout Sikhs,” recalled Mann. “He comes from a very, very good family. I should know that because I used to call on them.”
kbolan@postmedia.com
twitter.com/kbolan
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