[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 145 (Thursday, September 27, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1999]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
OPERATION SILENCE: SHIFTING BLAME ON AIR INDIA BOMBING
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HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS
of new york
in the house of representatives
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Mr. TOWNS. Madam Speaker, on August 4, the Indian newspaper and
website Tehelka, which has done significant work exposing corruption in
India, published a report on the 1985 Air India bombing, which was the
worst terrorist incident involving aircraft until September 11, 2001.
In the report, they produce new evidence that the Indian Government was
responsible for the attack, which killed 329 innocent people.
The new report discusses the interrogation of the late Babbar Khalsa
leader Talwinder Singh Parmar, who was considered by the Indians to be
one of the masterminds of the attack. It should be noted that Babbar
Khalsa was and is heavily infiltrated by the Indian Government and has
been pretty much under its control
In his interrogation, Parmar points the finger of responsibility
straight at the Indian Government. The documents, obtained from the
Punjab Human Rights Organization, PHRO, which conducted a 7-year
investigation, were supposed to have been destroyed by the
interrogating officer, but he secretly kept them all this time.
Parmar identifies Lakhbir Singh Rode as a mastermind of the bombing.
Rode is head of the International Sikh Youth Federation. According to
PHRO, Rode is an agent of the Indian Government. Sarabjit Singh, chief
investigator for the PHRO, reports that Parmar was ordered killed to
cover up Rode's involvement.
Parmar was supposed to have been killed in an encounter with police,
but the PHRO pointed out that he had been in police custody for some
time at the time he was killed. PHRO reports that there is ``conclusive
evidence'' that Parmar was killed in police custody.
With this information coming on top of the mountain of evidence
produced by Zuhair Kashmeri and Brian McAndrew in their book Soft
Target and the report by former Member of Parliament David Kilgour in
his book Betrayed: The Spy Canada Abandoned, in which he reports that a
Canadian-Polish double agent was approached by representatives of the
Indian Government asking him to become involved in a second bombing
because ``the first one worked so well,'' there can be no doubt that
the Indian Government itself is the real culprit behind this act of
terrorism. The links are just too strong.
State terrorism is unacceptable whether it is carried out by the
Taliban in Afghanistan, by Mr. Ahmadinejad in Iran, by some tinhorn
dictator in Latin America, or by the ``world's largest democracy.'' We
cannot let this stand. The time has come to stop our aid to India, end
our trade, and speak out strongly for self-determination, the
cornerstone of democracy, throughout South Asia. Only then will these
kinds of abuses, designed to set up one ethnic or religious group as
``terrorists'' so they can be killed, come to an end.
I request the permission of the House to place the Tehelka article in
the Record for the information of my colleagues and the public.
Kanishka Tragedy--Operation Silence
(By Vikram Jit Singh)
Fifteen years after Babbar Khalsa International leader
Talwinder Singh Parmar, one of the two alleged masterminds of
the mid-air bombing of Air India's Kanishka airplane, was
shown as having being killed in an encounter in Punjab,
retired Punjab Police DSP Harmail Singh Chandi, who nabbed
Parmar from Jammu in September 1992 and interrogated him for
five days before he was killed along with five others, has
come forward with the claim that Parmar was killed in police
custody on the orders of senior police officers, who also
asked his confession record to be destroyed. In his
confession, Parmar had named Lakhbir Singh Brar ``Rode'',
nephew of the late Bhindranwale and head of the banned
International Sikh Youth Federation, as the mastermind of the
bombing. Rode, who is now said to be holed up in Lahore, has
never figured in the investigations of either the CBI or the
Canadian authorities.
Chandi has brought forward the entire record of Parmar's
confession, including audio tapes and statements, before the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the John Major
Commission of Inquiry that is reinvestigating the June 23,
1985 blast that claimed 331 lives off the Irish coast. Chandi
had been ordered by senior officers to destroy the records
but he retained them secretly. The record was brought before
the Major Commission due to seven-year-long investigations by
the Punjab Human Rights Organisation (PHRO), a Chandigarh-
based ngo that conducted interviews of Parmar's associates in
India and Canada and pieced together a comprehensive report.
The PHRO's Principal Investigator Sarbjit Singh and lawyer
Rajvinder Singh Bains flew to Canada along with Harmail in
June and produced their findings before the Commission's
counsels.
A Canadian citizen, Parmar was shown as having been killed
in an exchange of fire between police and six militants in
the wee hours of October 15, 1992, near village Kang Arian in
Phillar sub-division. However, evidence brought forward by
Harmail (who was then DSP, Phillaur) shows that Parmar was
interrogated between October 9 and 14 by senior police
officers, where he revealed that the blasts were instigated
by Lakhbir Singh Brar Rode.
Parmar's confession reads: ``Around May 1985, a functionary
of the International Sikh Youth Federation came to me and
introduced himself as Lakhbir Singh and asked me for help in
conducting some violent activities to express the resentment
of the Sikhs. I told him to come after a few days so that I
could arrange for dynamite and battery etc. He told me that
he would first like to see a trial of the blast . . . After
about four days, Lakhbir Singh and another youth, Inderjit
Singh Reyat, both came to me. We went into the jungle (of
British Columbia). There we joined a dynamite stick with a
battery and triggered off a blast. Lakhbir and Inderjit, even
at that time, had in their minds a plan to blast an
aeroplane. I was not too keen on this plan but agreed to
arrange for the dynamite sticks. Inderjit wanted to use for
this purpose a transistor fitted with a battery . . . That
very day, they took dynamite sticks from me and left.
``Then Lakhbir Singh, Inderjit Singh and their accomplice,
Manjit Singh, made a plan to plant bombs in an Air India (AI)
plane leaving from Toronto via London for Delhi and another
flight that was to leave Tokyo for Bangkok. Lakhbir Singh got
the seat booking done from Vancouver to Tokyo and then
onwards to Bangkok, while Manjit Singh got it done from
Vancouver to Toronto and then from Toronto to Delhi. Inderjit
prepared the bags for the flights, which were loaded with
dynamite bombs fitted with a battery and transistor. They
decided that the suitcases will be booked but they themselves
will not travel by the same flights although they will take
the boarding passes. After preparing these bombs, the plan
was ready for execution by June 21 or 22, 1985. However, the
bomb to be kept in the flight from Tokyo to Delhi via Bangkok
exploded at the Narita airport on the conveyor belt. The
second suitcase that was loaded on the Toronto-Delhi ai
flight exploded in the air.''
Sarabjit said the PHRO's probe has shown that Parmar was
killed to hide the name of Lakhbir, who was an Indian agent.
``After the Khalistan movement gained in sympathy in the
West, especially in Canada, after the 1984 Blue Star
operation and the killing of Sikhs in Delhi, a plot was
hatched to discredit the Sikh movement. Parmar was roped in
by Lakhbir at the behest of his masters. The Punjab Police
got orders to finish off Parmar as he knew too much about the
main perpetrators. On the day of the Kanishka blast, an
explosion took place at Japan's Narita airport, where two
Japanese baggage handlers were killed. The plot was to
trigger blasts when the two aircraft had de-embarked their
passengers but the 1 hour 40 minute delay in Kanishka's
takeoff led to the bomb exploding mid-air,'' Sarbjit said.
What gives credence to Sarabjit's charge is the Source
Report (in Tehelka's possession) prepared by the Jalandhar
Police soon after Parmar was killed. Based on information
provided by Parmar--though not attributing it to his
interrogation--the report makes no reference to Lakhbir.
Interestingly, Lakhbir, accused in many acts of terrorist
violence, is wanted by the Indian Government in only a minor
case registered in Moga, Punjab. The Red Corner Interpol
notice, A-23/1-1997, put out by the CBI against Lakhbir
states: ``OFFENCES: House breaking, theft, damage by fire.''
The PHRO told Canadian authorities that conclusive evidence
existed of Parmar being killed in police custody and not in
the ``encounter'' shown in FIR No 105 registered at Phillaur
police station on October 15, 1992. The PHRO report, AI
Flight 182 Case, states ``On October 14, 1992, a high-level
decision was conveyed to the police that Parmar had to be
killed . . . The contradiction in the FIR and post-mortem
report (PMR) is too obvious. As per the FIR, Parmar was
killed by AK-47 fire by SSP Satish K Sharma from a rooftop.
The PMR shows the line of fire of the three bullets is
different. It cannot be if one person is firing from a fixed
position. The PMR is very sketchy and no chemical analysis
was done. Moreover, the time of death is between 12am and 2am
according to the PMR, whereas the FIR records the time of
death at 5.30am.'' Then Jalandhar SSP and now IGP, Satish K
Sharma, denied the charge. ``It was a clean encounter. The
RCMP is bringing this up because they botched their
investigations and failed to get convictions,'' he said.
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