Talwinder Singh Babbar
Talwinder Singh Parmar was a Sikh militant and the mastermind of the 1985 Air India Flight 182 bombing, which killed 329 people. It was the worst single incident of aviation terrorism in history until the September 11 attacks in the United States. In addition, another bomb was meant to explode aboard Air India Flight 301 in Japan the same day, but it exploded while the plane was still grounded, killing two people. Parmar was also the founder, leader, and jathedar of Babbar Khalsa International, better known as Babbar Khalsa, a Sikh militant group involved in the Khalistan movement. He expanded Babbar Khalsa internationally into Canada and Germany.
In 1981, he was accused by India of killing 2 Punjab Police officers and was arrested in 1983 in West Germany. In an interview with Des Pardes Parmar would admit involvement in the murder of Lala Jagat Narian and numerous Nirankaris. He was released in 1984 after which he immediately returned to Canada.
Parmar orchestrated the bombing of Air India Flight 182, killing 329, and an attempted bombing of Air India Flight 301, killing 2 bag handlers. While out on bail, in relation to the Air India bombing, Parmar would be arrested in connection to a planned bombing of an Air India plane in New York in 1986. He would flee to Pakistan in 1988 and was allegedly killed in a gun fight with Punjab Police on 15 October 1992. He was later named as the mastermind of the 1985 Air India bombing.
Early life
Talwinder Singh Parmar was born in a Sikh family of village Panchhat, Kapurthala, Punjab, India on 26 February 1944. He immigrated to Canada in May 1970, and became a naturalized citizen of Canada. Parmar would marry and have 3 children by 1978.Militancy
As per The Tribune, Parmar and Sukhdev Singh took the pledge to take revenge on the Sant Nirankari Mission, a sub-sect of the Nirankari sect of Sikhism. The pledge followed the 1978 Sikh–Nirankari clash, which saw 13 Sikh killed and 150 injured, Nirankari were also expelled by the Akal Takht out of the Sikh fold. Sukhdev founded the organization Babbar Khalsa along with Talwinder Singh Parmar with the objective to secede from India and form the state of Khalistan for Sikhs. Babbar Khalsa's first goals were to kill Nirankairs indistricmanitly.In the period following the Nirankari clash and until Operation Blue Star Parmar led Babbar Khalsa in committing a targeted killing program against Nirankaris and anyone suspected of supporting the Nirankaris. In 1984 Babbar Khalsa publicly claimed responsibility for killing 35 Nirankaris and later in the same year 78 Nirankaris.
On 9 September 1981, Lala Jagat Narain was assassinated. Jagat was a former Punjab Legislative Assembly member and a former Member of Parliament. He was also the founder of Hind Samachar. Jagat was an outspoken critic of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and of the Khalistan movement. Talwinder Singh Parmar claimed responsibility. Bhindranwale would be accused of the murder and offered himself to the police for arrest on 20 September 1981.
On the day of his arrest, three armed men, from Babbar Khalsa, on a motorcycle opened fire using machine guns in a market in Jalandhar in retaliation, killing four people and injured twelve. The next day, in another incident at Tarn Taran one Hindu man was killed and thirteen people were injured. On 14 October 1981 Bhindranwale would be released by Zail Singh.
Murder charges and arrest
On 19 November 1981, the Punjab Police were looking for Tarsem Singh Kalasinghian and his accomplices, when an encounter took place at Daheru village in Ludhiana district in which Police Inspector Pritam Singh Bajwa and Constable Surat Singh of Jalandhar were gunned down. All of the militants hiding in a house of Amarjit Singh Nihang managed to escape. Among those named in the First Information Report were Parmar, Wadhwa Singh. Amarjit Singh Nihang, Amarjit Singh, Sewa Singh and Gurnam Singh. This is believed to be the first act which gained Babbar Khalsa and its chief, Talwinder Singh Parmar, notoriety.In 1982, India issued a warrant for Talwinder Singh Parmar's arrest for six charges of murder, stemming from the killing of police officers and an Interpol alert would be issued. In 1983, he was arrested in Germany on charges of murdering two police officers in Punjab in 1981. Talwinder Singh Parmar went on a hunger strike in jail for his right to wear a turban and have vegetarian meals. Talwinder Singh Parmar was acquitted by German authorities and then returned to Canada. India requested for his extradition from Canada, but the request was turned down, and Canada declined to extradite Singh to India.
On 4 April 1985, Parmar would be wiretapped by CSIS where he discussed a plot to assassinate Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in the US with one Jang Singh.
Bombing of Air India 182 and 301
On 23 June 1985, Air India Flight 182 was bombed. It was a part of an attempted double-bombing which included Air India Flight 301. In March 2005 judgment, Justice Josephson of the British Columbia Supreme Court concluded that one of the leaders of the conspiracy was Parmar. The plane was destined to make its route from Montreal, Canada to New Delhi, India, over the Atlantic Ocean. All 329 passengers were killed, including 268 Canadian, 27 British and 24 Indian citizens. It remains the worst terrorist attack in Canadian history and was the world's deadliest act of aviation terrorism until the September 11 attacks in 2001.From the time of Parmar's return to Canada following his incarceration in West Germany, he was considered a person of interest to the Canadian authorities. Surveillance on Parmar began as early as 1982, with agents being sent to follow his movements. CSIS regared
Planning
Parmar was believed to have been planning terror attacks targeting India as early as 1984 when her arrived in Canada. Between his arrival and the Air India bombing Parmar began recruiting for Babbr Khalsa across Canada and the United States. Parmar formed guerrilla warfare training camps in the United States.In August 1984 known criminal, Gerry Boudreault, claimed to be offered $200,000 by Parmar to place a bomb on Air India 182 from Montreal.
In September 1984 a man named Harmail Singh Grewal, in an attempt to bargain down his sentence, offered to provide information to CSIS and the RCMP about a plot to put a bomb on Air India 182 in Montreal. Grewal was dismissed by authorities as unreliable for which CSIS would later face criticism.
On 1 June, Air India headquarters from Bombay reported to the RCMP of intelligence to plant a time-bomb on an Air India flight timed to explode over Europe. Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario James Bartleman also testified that, as a senior intelligence official in the federal Department of External Affairs, he saw a security "intercept" with a specific warning of a threat against the airline on the weekend of the bombing.
On 4 June. a CSIS team followed Parmar as he travelled with an unidentified young man, known as "Mr. X.". The car was followed to Duncan and the home of Inderjeet SIngh Reyat. Reyat and Parmar were seen entering the woods where soon after, a large blast would be heard. Following this CSIS agents observed something being placed in Parmar's trunk and Mr. X. and Reyat being dropped off at Reyat's residence. Invesitgators believe they were testing the detonation system which would be placed in Air India 182 and 301.
On 9 June, a police informer in Hamilton reported that Parmar and Ajaib Singh Bagri had visited the Malton Sikh Temple, warning the faithful that "it would be unsafe" to fly Air India. Vancouver police also monitored militants 11 days before the bombing. A leader of the International Sikh Youth Federation complained that no Indian consuls or ambassadors had yet been killed, but was given the response of, "You will see. Something will be done in two weeks."
Parmar and his accomplices used payphones and talked in code. Translators' notes of wiretapped conversations include the following exchange between Talwinder Parmar and a follower named Hardial Singh Johal on 20 June 1985, the day the tickets were purchased:
This conversation appears to be an order from Parmar to book the airline tickets. It is believed that "writing the story" referred to purchasing the tickets; afterward, Johal phoned Parmar back and asked if he could "come over and read the story he asked for", to which Parmar agreed.
Soon after a man calling himself "Mr. Singh" made reservations for two flights on 22 June: one for "Jaswant Singh" to fly from Vancouver to Toronto on Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 086 and one for "Mohinderbel Singh" to fly from Vancouver to Tokyo on Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 003 and connect to Air India Flight 301 to Delhi via Bangkok. At 02:20 UTC on the same day, another call changed the reservation in the name of "Jaswant Singh" from CP 086 to CP 060, also flying from Vancouver to Toronto. The caller further requested to be put on the waiting list for AI 181 from Toronto to Montreal and AI 182 from Montreal to Bombay. The next day, at 19:10 UTC, a man wearing a turban paid for the two tickets with $3,005 in cash at a CP ticket office in Vancouver. The names on the reservations were changed: "Jaswant Singh" became "M. Singh" and "Mohinderbel Singh" became "L. Singh". The reservation and purchase of these tickets together would be used as evidence to link the two flights to one plot.
M. Singh checked in his luggage for Air India 182, which contained the bomb, 3 hours before the flight and did not board. L. Singh did the same for Air India 301.
One telephone number left as a contact was Vancouver's Ross Street Sikh temple. The other number became one of the first leads tracked by investigators, and was traced to Johal, a janitor at a Vancouver high school. Johal was an avid follower of Parmar, and thus closely scrutinized in the investigation following the Air India bombing. He was alleged to have stored the suitcase explosives in the basement of a Vancouver school and to have purchased the tickets for the flights on which the bombs were placed. Mandip Singh Grewal recounted how he saw and recognized Johal as his school's janitor when he said goodbye to his father, one of the Flight 182 victims, at the airport on the day of the bombing.
Bombing
At 12:15 AM Air India 182 takes off from Montreal and lands at Toronto. It then takes off headed London. 55 minutes before Air India 182 exploded the bomb set to explode on board Air India 301 exploded at the terminal in Narita International Airport due to a Parmar and co. not accounting for daylight saving time. Two Japanese baggage handlers were killed and four other people were injured. Air India 182 exploded off coast of Dublin over the Atlantic ocean. Everyone on board, 307 passengers and 22 crew, was killed, including 82 infants.Aftermath
On 8 November Parmar is arrested by authorities and charged, but later these charges are dropped due to lack of evidence. The investigation into Parmar was highly botched by CSIS and the RCMP leading to Parmar never being convicted. Lots of evidence was erased and much was not brought into light unit an Inquiry by the Supreme Court of Canada which concluded Parmar was the mastermind.After Air India Bombing
On 1 June 1986, 5 Babbar Khalsa members would be arrested who plotted to bomb an Air India flight headed to New Delhi from New York CIty. The arrested were close associates of Parmar and Parmar would to be arrested in connection to the conspiracy while out on bail,, but later released.Tara Singh Hayer began reporting in April 1988 of Parmar and Bagri's involvement in the Air India bombing. He was a witness to Bagri's admission of taking part in the bombing. He followed up with more specificity in the August edition: "In 1985 in England, Bagri was talking noisily about his involvement in the blowing up of the Air India airplane."
A week after publishing his August report, Hayer survived an attempt on his life that left him in a wheelchair. He was shot in his newspaper office by Harkirat Singh Bagga, a youth who later pleaded guilty to attempted murder. Bagga was one of the suspects behind the Air India bombing. The .357 Magnum that he used was provided by a California man who was also the owner of a gun found in the residence of Reyat, the only person convicted in the Air India bombing. Parmar is believed to have been involved in the conspiracy against Hayer's life.
Throughout this period Parmar accumulated much wealth through the collection of donations and shaheedi funds. Parmar would purchase four separate homes.
In 1988 Parmar would flee to Pakistan.
Death
In August 1992 Parmar's associate Sukhdev Singh would be killed by Punjab Police who were crushing the insurgency by Sikhi militants through Operation Rakshak II. Parmar was killed in an encounter with the Punjab police on 15 October 1992 as he attempted to cross the Indian-Pakistan border into India. Evidence would later come in light showing that Parmar had been in custody for nine days where he was interrogated and then killed. The killing would be framed as an encounter.Legacy
Pictures of Parmar are hung in numerous Gurdwaras across Canada, USA, and England as he's a martyr for the Sikhs.In July 2023, posters of Parmar were seen in several places in Canada advertising a car rally in his honour. The posters referred to Parmar as a "shaheed".