Kanishka bombing: Canadian police identifies bomb-testing suspect ‘X’, refuses to disclose identity
PTC News Desk: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have identified the suspect who helped in testing the bomb on Vancouver Island a few weeks before the Air India bombing on June 23, 1985.
RCMP Asst. Commissioner David Teboul said that the previously unidentified suspect in the mass murder case recently died without ever facing charges.
“The name cannot be disclosed due to privacy laws even though the man is dead,”
Teboul made the revelations ahead of the 40th anniversary of the Air India Kanishka bombing which killed 329 people on board flight AI 182. He was speaking in Ireland, as a member of a Canadian delegation which is in the European country for the anniversary.
Teboul, who is the commander of federal policing in B.C., said that despite the acquittals of two key bombing suspects in 2005, investigators have continued to work on the file “to tie up some loose ends and discover more truth that’s independent of judicial process” which eventually led to the identification of suspect dubbed as ‘X’
on June 4, 1985, the individual X travelled to Duncan with terror plot mastermind Talwinder Singh Parmar. The two men then joined up with electrician Inderjit Singh Reyat. The trio went into the woods and tested a bomb all while they were being followed by agents from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The agents heard the blast but thought it was a gunshot.
While Parmar, the Babbar Khalsa International founder, was killed in a police encounter in Punjab in 1992, Reyat pleaded guilty to assisting Mr X and Parmar in developing the Air India bomb. However, he later testified that he didn't know the name of Mr. X.
- With inputs from agencies
