A report published by the state-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) claiming that Canada’s security agency “had a mole” in the group that hatched the plan to bomb an Air India flight in 1985 is going viral on social media.
The report published in 2003 claims that the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) “pulled out the mole at the last minute so he wouldn’t be implicated”.
This fresh outpour of anger on social media over the 21-year-old report comes at a time when India-Canada bilateral relations have descended to its lowest.
The strained relations between Ottawa and New Delhi went several notches lower after Canadian PM Justin Trudeau levelled unsubstantiated charges against Indian envoys, linking them to the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was also a Canadian citizen.
The CBC, based on the document released by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) back then, had reported that Canada’s CSIS set up a mole named Surjan Singh Gill who described himself as the consul-general of Khalistan.
The report mentions that Gill was “involved right from the start and was directed by ‘certain people’ to stay involved and learn what was going on”.
Later, the Canadian authority asked Gill to “back out” as he couldn’t be seen to be a part of it.
“They told him to get out of there. That things are happening and you can’t be seen as part of that,” Sgt. Jim Hunter told CBC.
The Canadian state media’s documents are based on transcripts of an interview conducted by the RCMP with Ajaib Singh Bagri, one of the accused in Air India bombings. Bagri was arrested in October 2000.
Gill eventually left Canada to live in London. He was never charged in the bombing of Air India Flight 182, which took place in 1985, killing 329 people off the coast of Ireland, the CBC report claims.
In the same report, it has been claimed that the CSIS destroyed “hundreds of wiretaps relating to the Air India investigation”.
This year in June, contradictory to the CBC report, Canadian law enforcement issued a statement assuring that the probe into the bombing of Air India flight 182, the Kanishka, by Khalistani terrorists, remains active and ongoing.
The statement came as the tragedy marked its 39th memorial anniversary.
What happened in 1985
On June 23, 1985, an Air India flight travelling from Canada to India via London exploded off the Irish coast, resulting in the deaths of all 329 passengers and crew on board.
The explosion was caused by a bomb hidden in a suitcase that had been transferred onto the flight despite the ticket holder not boarding. Among the victims were 268 Canadian citizens, predominantly of Indian descent, and 24 Indian nationals. Only 131 bodies were recovered from the sea.