[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 85 (Wednesday, May 23, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1130-E1131]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  COUNCIL OF KHALISTAN WRITES TO CANADIAN JUSTICE MINISTER ABOUT AIR 
                          INDIA INVESTIGATION

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, May 23, 2007

  Mr. TOWNS. Madam Speaker, as you mow, the government of Canada has 
undertaken another investigation into the 1985 Air India bombing. 
Recently, the Council of Khalistan wrote to the Canadian Justice 
Minister about that investigation.
  The letter states that ``the Indian government continues to try to 
blame Sikhs for this atrocity, despite the fact that Ripudaman Singh 
Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri were acquitted by a Canadian judge, who 
said that the witnesses against them were not credible.'' In the 
letter, Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh, President of the Council of Khalistan, 
notes that the Canadian Security Investigation Service (CSIS) said at 
the time, ``if you really want to clear 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 were involved.''
  The Indian Consul General in Toronto, Mr. Surinder Malik, pulled his 
wife and daughter off the flight at the last minute. A friend of his 
who was a car dealer also cancelled his reservation suddenly. Mr. Malik 
called in a lot of information about the case before the incident was 
even public knowledge, including a tip to look for an ``L. Singh'' on 
the passenger manifest. ``L. Singh'' was the name under which one of 
the bombers held his tickets. The other was ``M. Singh.'' Later, a man 
named Lal

[[Page E1131]]

Singh told the press that he was offered ``two million dollars and 
settlement in a nice country'' to give false testimony in the case--an 
offer that Mr. Singh declined. It seems that, as Zuhair Kashmeri and 
Brian McAndrew, the Canadian journalists who wrote the definitive book 
on the case, Soft Target, noted, ``[Consul General] Malik knew more 
details about the two blasts than did the police investigators.'' How 
did this Indian government official know so much so soon?
  He also admitted that he fed information to the Toronto Globe and 
Mail to make a stronger case to blame the Sikhs for the bombing. This 
was part of a coordinated Indian government effort to paint the Sikh 
community as terrorists.
  It is also worth noting that the Sikh group on whom India has placed 
the blame all these years is a group called Babbar Khalsa. It is 
heavily infiltrated by the Indian government. So by trying to blame 
Babbar Khalsa, the government is essentially taking the blame itself.
  I recommend to all my colleagues that they read this informative 
letter.
  This is just further proof, if any is needed, that India is a regime 
that will carry out acts of terror to promote its own political 
objectives. Remember that India has killed more than a quarter of a 
million Sikhs, according to the Punjab State Magistracy, and hold over 
52,000 of them as political prisoners, according to the Movement 
Against State Repression. As I have asked before, why does a democracy 
need a Movement Against State Repression anyway? Amnesty International 
reports that tens of thousands of other minorities are held as 
political prisoners in India, and it has killed over 90,000 Kashmiri 
Muslims, over 300,000 Christians in Nagaland, and tens of thousands of 
other minorities as well.
  Why should the American people and government support such a 
government, especially at a time when we are putting our young people 
on the front lines to fight against terrorism? The time has come to cut 
off our aid to Indian, end our trade with them, and put Congress on 
record in support of the freedom movements there. This is the way to 
peace, freedom, prosperity, and stability in South Asia, Madam Speaker.


                                         Council of Khalistan,

                                     Washington, DC, May 16, 2007.
     Hon. Robert Douglas Nicholson,
     Justice Minister of Canada,
     House of Commons, Ottawa, Canada.
       Dear Minister Nicholson: I am writing in regard to your new 
     inquiry into the Air India Flight 182 bombing of 1985. I see 
     no purpose for this ongoing inquiry. As you know, the Indian 
     government continues to try to blame Sikhs for this atrocity, 
     despite the fact that Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh 
     Bagri were acquitted by a Canadian judge, who said that the 
     witnesses against them were ``not credible.''
       Shortly after the bombing occurred, two Canadian 
     journalists, Zuhair Kashmeri of the Toronto Globe and Mail 
     and Brian McAndrew of the Toronto Star, wrote an excellent 
     book on the case entitled Soft Target, which proves that the 
     Indian government itself carried out the bombing. This 
     finding is confirmed in a book by former Member of Parliament 
     David Kilgour entitled Betrayal: The Spy Canada Abandoned. I 
     urge you to call Mr. Kashmeri and Mr. Mcandrew as witnesses 
     in the inquiry.
       Soft Target shows how the Indian regime bombed its own 
     airliner in 1985, killing 329 innocent people, to justify 
     further repression against the Sikhs. The book quotes an 
     investigator from the Canadian Security Investigation Service 
     as saying, ``If you really want to clear 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.''
       Among many other things, they note that the Indian Consul 
     General in Toronto, Mr. Surinder Malik (no relation to 
     Ripudaman Singh Malik), called in a detailed description of 
     the disaster just hours later when it took the Canadian 
     investigators weeks to find that information. He told them 
     that they should check the passenger manifest for an ``L. 
     Singh'' because he was responsible--before there was any 
     public knowledge of the bombing!
       According to Wikipedia, on June 20, 1985, two days before 
     the flight, ``at 1910 GMT, a man paid for the two tickets 
     with $3,005 in cash at a CP ticket office in Vancouver. The 
     names on the reservations were changed; `Jaswand Singh' 
     became `M. Singh' and `Mohinderbel Singh' became `L. Singh.' 
     ''. Note that this is the same name that Consul General Malik 
     told investigators to look for--``L. Singh.''
       It would later come out in newspaper reports that a Sikh 
     named Lal Singh told the press that he was offered ``two 
     m111ion dollars and settlement in a nice country'' by the 
     Indian regime to give false testimony in the case.
       Consul General Malik had also pulled his wife and daughter 
     off the flight suddenly at the last minute, on the feeble 
     excuse that the daughter had a paper for school. A friend of 
     Consul General Malik's who was a Car dealer also cancelled at 
     the last minute.
       According to Kashmeri and McAndrew, ``Curiously, [Consul 
     General] Malik knew more details about the two blasts than 
     did the police investigators. . . . Malik said that while one 
     of the suspects was booked to Japan, the other was booked to 
     Toronto and onwards to Bombay. He also said that the two 
     checked their bomb-laden bags but did not board the flight 
     themselves. In sum, Malik had painted a scenario of the 
     double sabotage operation that was a near perfect account of 
     what the Mounties would take weeks to fathom.
       [Consul General] Malik continually fed the Globe 
     information pointing to Sikh terrorists as the source of the 
     bombs. He was behind another story six days after the crash, 
     this one headlined `Air-India pilot reported given parcel by 
     Sikh.'.'' Kashmeri and McAndrew also wrote, ``Malik pressured 
     the Globe to publish this story, adding that it could be used 
     to make a stronger case for blaming the Air-India and Narita 
     bombings on the Babbar Khalsa leader. Malik also decried the 
     Canadian system of justice for failing to come up with a 
     quick solution to the bombings. `In India we would have had a 
     confession by now. You people have too many civil and human-
     rights laws,' he complained.''
       The Sikh organization that the Indian government said was 
     responsible, Babbar Kahlsa, is and was then heavily 
     infiltrated by Indian government operatives at very high 
     levels of the organization. The main backer of the group had 
     received a $2 million loan from the State Bank of India just 
     before the plane was attacked, according to Soft Target. The 
     year after the bombing, three Indian consuls general were 
     asked to leave the country.
       In his book, Kilgour wrote that Canadian-Polish double 
     agent Ryszard Paszkowski was approached to join a plot to 
     carry out a second bombing. The people who approached 
     Paszkowski were connected to the Indian government.
       Yet the Indian government continues to apply pressure to 
     find some Sikhs guilty of the bombing. I am sure that your 
     inquiry will be conducted with fairness and justice. I hope 
     that you will find the real culprits and put this matter to 
     rest. The bombing was an Indian government operation from the 
     beginning.
       If there is anything I can do to assist you, please feel 
     free to contact me.
           Sincerely,
                                          Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh,
     President, Council of Khalistan.

                          ____________________