Ripudaman Singh Malik, the man acquitted in the 1985 Air India terrorist bombing, has been killed in a targeted shooting in Surrey, B.C.
An employee who works at a business near the site of the shooting says he pulled Malik from his car this morning, bleeding from three gunshot wounds, including one to the neck.
The man, who didn’t want to be named, says Malik was a customer and also owned a business in the area.
Sarj Basra, the owner of the Auto Shine Car Wash and Detail, says it’s upsetting and scary that such a shooting would happen in their neighbourhood.
RCMP say in a news release that a man has died in what appears to be a targeted attack, but they did not name the victim.
Malik and his co-accused, Ajaib Singh Bagri, were found not guilty in March 2005 of murder and conspiracy in a pair of Air India bombings that killed 331 people on June 23, 1985.
B.C. Supreme Court heard during the trial that a suitcase bomb was loaded onto a plane at Vancouver’s airport and then transferred in Toronto to Air India Flight 182.
The aircraft crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Ireland, killing 329 passengers and crew.
About an hour later, a bomb destined for another Air India plane exploded prematurely at Tokyo’s Narita Airport, where two baggage handlers died.
Inderjit Singh Reyat, the only man convicted in the bombings, testified for the Crown at Malik and Bagri’s trial and was later convicted of perjury.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 14, 2022.
The Canadian Press
