[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 32 (Thursday, February 27, 2003)]
[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

                                 ______
                                 

                          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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