[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E334-E335]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

CANADIAN PLEA IN AIR INDIA CASE COVERS UP GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT

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HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS

of new york

in the house of representatives

Thursday, February 27, 2003

Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Speaker, recently, the Canadian courts accepted a plea
bargain from Inderjit Singh Reyat in a case related to the bombing of
an Air India jet in 1985 that killed 329 people. The plea covers up the
clear and strong evidence that the Indian government itself blew up the
airplane.
The book Soft Target, written by Canadian journalists Zuhair Kashmeri
of the Toronto Globe and Mail and Brian McAndrew of the Toronto Star,
shows that the story agreed to by Mr. Reyat matches a story first
suggested in 1985 by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). A Sikh
named Lal Singh reported that he was offered ``two million dollars and
settlement in a nice country'' for false testimony in the case. He
turned down that offer. There are some questions about whether the
evidence in Reyat's first trial was valid, according to the National
Post.
Canadian Member of Parliament David Kilgour wrote a book called
Betrayal: The Spy Canada Abandoned about a Polish-Canadian double agent
who was approached by the Indian government to carry out a second
bombing. Soft Target shows that the Indian Consul General in Toronto
knew more than the RCMP and the Canadian Security Investigative Service
(CSIS) in the early hours of the investigation. Why did his daughter
and wife, a friend of his who was an auto dealer, and the director of
North American operations for the Indian government all cancel their
reservations on the doomed flight at the last minute, Mr. Speaker?
Even if the Indian government's story that a Sikh carried the bomb
onto the plane is true, it implicates them. The person they have
identified is associated with a Sikh activist named Dr. Jagjit Singh
Chohan, who was identified in the book Chakravyuh: Web of Indian
Secularism as someone who has been supported by the Indian government
and has worked at its behest, including cooperating with them on the
attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar in June 1984. Thus, even the
Indian government's own version of the story places the blame squarely
on the Indian government.
Back on July 26, 1992, the, India Monitor reported the arrest in
Bombay of a Sikh named Manjit Singh in connection with the Air India
case. The RCMP, however, said it knew of no Manjit Singh and he was not
a suspect. The Indian government has been desperately trying to pin its
crime on the Sikhs for years.
The Council of Khalistan has issued an excellent press release on the
Reyat case. I would like to place it in the Record at this time, Mr.
Speaker.

Canadian Courts Cover Up Indian Complicity in Bombing

Reyat Plea Matches RCMP Story Suggested in 1985 Questioning

Washington, DC., Feb. 12, 2003.--The recent plea bargain by
Inderjit Singh Reyat in the 1985 Air India crash is the
result of a concerted Indo-Canadian effort to cover up the
Indian government's own responsibility for this atrocity that
killed 329 innocent people, said Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh,
President of the Council of Khalistan, which leads the Sikh
Nation's struggle for independence.
The book Soft Target, written by respected Canadian
journalists Zuhair Kashmeri of the Toronto Globe and Mail and
Brian McAndrew of the Toronto Star, clearly established that
the lndian government is responsible for the bombing. The
book quotes an investigator from the Canadian Security
Investigative Service (CSIS) who said, ``If you really want
to clear up the incidents quickly, take vans down to the
Indian High Commission and the consulates in Toronto and
Vancouver, load up everybody and take them down for
questioning. We know it and they know it that they are
involved.''
Mere hours after the incident, while the CSIS and the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police were still retrieving the passenger
list stored in the Air India computer, Indian Consul General
Surinder Malik called the Globe and Mail to tell them to look
for an ``L. Singh'' on the passenger manifest. How could
Malik have known this? ``L. Singh'' turned out to be a Sikh
named Lal Singh. Lal Singh told an Indian newspaper that he
was offered ``$2 million and settlement in a nice country''
to testify falsely against the three individuals that Canada
has charged with the bombing, an offer he refused. Curiously,
Consul General Malik knew more details about the case than
the police did.
Malik had pulled his wife and daughter off the flight
suddenly, claiming that his daughter had a paper to write for
school. A Canadian auto dealer who was a friend of Malik's
cancelled his reservation on the flight at the last minute,
as well. So did Siddhartha Singh, head of North American
Affairs for external relations in New Delhi. In addition the
sister-in-law of the head of the Canadian wing of Dal Khalsa
cancelled her reservations. Dal Khalsa is a political party
formed by Zail Singh, who was President of India when Indira
Gandhi was Prime Minister. How did all these people
affiliated with the Indian government come to cancel their
reservations at the last minute?
The story told in court in connection with Inderjit Singh
Reyat's plea bargain matches in significant detail the story
pressed upon him at the time of his initial arrest in
November 1985, which he denied. An RCMP agent named Glen
Rockwell told Reyat that he could get off the hook if he said
that others hatched the bombing plot and sought his
assistance and that he didn't know what he was doing. Reyat
replied ``I didn't help killing those people. No way.'' He
said that Talwinder Singh Parmar, who has since been murdered
by the Indian police, wanted to send some kind of explosive
device to India. These details match the ``statement of
facts'' at Reyat's trial.
The Indian Consul General planted a story in the Globe and
Mail claiming that Reyat was given a parcel to carry onto the
flight by Jagdev Nijjar, whose brother was in the inner
circle of Jagjit Singh Chohan, who claims to be a Khalistani
leader, but who was exposed in the book Chakravyuh: Web of
Indian Secularism by Professor Gurtej Singh IAS in letters
showing that he connived with the Indian government in
planning the attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

[[Page E335]]

Chohan is also tied to Dal Khalsa. If the Indian government
really believes that Chohan's followers were involved in the
incident, then why wasn't Chohan arrested when he returned to
India last year?
A Member of the Canadian Parliament, David Kilgour,
confirms the Indian government's involvement. In his book
Betrayal: The Spy That Canada Forgot, he writes about a
Canadian-Polish double agent who was introduced to Indian
government agents. They asked him to join in their plot to
carry out a second bombing of an Air India jet, telling him
that ``the first one worked so well.''
The evidence clearly continues to show that the Indian
regime blew up its own airliner to damage the Sikh freedom
movement,'' said Dr. Aulakh. ``This is consistent with the
pattern of Indian government efforts to protect its
tyrannical rule over the minorities of South Asia''
The government of India has murdered over 250,000 Sikhs
since 1984, more than 200,000 Christians since 1948, over
85,000 Muslims in Kashmir since 1988, and tens of thousands
of Tamils, Assamese, Manipuris, Dalits (the aboriginal people
of the subcontinent), and others. Last March, the Indian
government murdered 2,000 to 5,000 Muslims in Gujarat,
according to the newspaper The Hindu. Over 52,000 Sikhs are
being held as political prisoners. The Indian Supreme Court
called the Indian government murders of Sikhs ``worse than a
genocide.'' On October 7, 1987, the Sikh Nation declared the
independence of its homeland, Punjab, Khalistan. No Sikh
representative has ever signed the Indian constitution. The
Sikh Nation demands freedom for its homeland, Khalistan.
``Only in a free and sovereign Khalistan will the Sikh
Nation prosper. In a democracy, the right to self-
determination is the sine qua non and India should allow a
plebiscite for the freedom of the Sikh Nation and all the
nations of South Asia,'' Dr. Aulakh said.

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