Ripudaman Singh Malik, man acquitted in Air India bombing, killed in BC

Ripudaman Singh Malik, one of two men acquitted in the 1985 Air India terrorist bombing, was killed in a targeted shooting in Surrey, BC

The Homicide Integrated Investigation Team released a statement Thursday confirming Malik’s death, saying the shooting appears to have been targeted and there was believed to be no further risk to the public.

An employee who works at a nearby car wash said he heard gunshots Thursday morning and ran outside to find Malik unconscious in his red Tesla.

“There were three shots. One hit him in the neck, that’s all. And I just knocked him out. He was alive,” said the man, who did not want to be identified for security reasons.

Police arrived in about 10 to 15 minutes, he said, and an ambulance took longer.

The man said he knew Malik as a customer at the car wash and because he had a business nearby.

Jaspreet Malik said in a statement on social media that her 75-year-old father came to Canada in 1972 and was committed to his community and family, including his wife, five children and eight grandchildren.

what people are reading

“The media will always refer to him as someone accused of the Air India bombing,” Malik said. “The media and the RCMP never seemed to accept the court’s decision and I pray that today’s tragedy is not related.”

Sarj Basra, owner of Auto Shine Car Wash and Detail, was not at work when the shooting happened, but said it’s upsetting and scary that something like this is happening in his neighborhood.

“Someone we know has died from the violence,” Basra said.

“He was always joking around. You know, he was always coming here, talking to us, stopping,” he said, adding that many of Malik’s vehicles were repaired at his business.

Asaf Gill, a carpet business owner, said he had an appointment with Malik about half an hour before he was killed.

“But then I came here and found this,” he said of yellow police tape surrounding the scene where a tight-knit business community was in shock.

The statement from the homicide team asks for the public’s help in solving the case.

“We are aware of Mr. Malik’s background, although at this time we are still working to determine his motive,” Sgt. Timothy Pierotti said.

He said that because the shooting occurred in a residential area, they are confident that there are witnesses who can help solve the crime.

RCMP said shortly after the attack that a vehicle believed to have been used in the shooting was found engulfed in flames a few blocks away.

Malik and his co-defendant, 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.

The BC Supreme Court heard during the trial that a suitcase bomb was loaded onto a plane at Vancouver airport and then transferred in Toronto to Air India Flight 182.

The plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Ireland, killing 329 passengers and crew. About an hour later, a bomb intended for another Air India plane exploded prematurely at Tokyo’s Narita Airport, killing two baggage handlers.

Inderjit Singh Reyat, the only man convicted of the bombings, testified for the Crown at Malik and Bagri’s trial, and was later convicted of perjury.

Deepak Khandelwal of Oakville, Ontario, was 17 when his sisters, Chandra, 21, and Manju, 19, were killed when Flight 182 fell from the sky.

“It’s like a nightmare that never stops giving,” he said of the many years it took to get the trial started, missteps by police during the investigation and an investigation into Canada’s worst mass murder.

“It just brings back all the horrible memories that we’ve had to go through for the last 37 years,” said Khandelwal, whose family lived in Saskatoon when the attacks occurred.

“I was supposed to be on the flight too,” he said. “I actually canceled a couple of days early because I was finishing 12th grade and got a scholarship to attend a program at the University of Calgary. So I chose to do that instead of going to my uncle’s wedding.”

Khandelwal and other families who are part of the Air India Victims’ Families Association said the Canadian government failed to provide them with the support they needed after the deaths. Most of the victims were Canadian citizens.

“I just hope that the Canadian government and government agencies can do a better job,” he said.

Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a formal apology in 2010, saying the families were not treated with respect after the worst terrorist attack in aviation history until the 9/11 attacks on the United States in 2001.

Rob Alexander of Hamilton was 15 years old when his father boarded Flight 182 to visit his mother in India.

Alexander was supposed to go with his father, Dr. Mathew Alexander, a cardiac surgeon, who was booked on an Air France flight before switching to Air India because it turned out to be cheaper.

“He told me, ‘Go to your basketball camp. I’ll be back in 10 days.'”

Alexander said he is grappling with how to deal with the news of Malik’s death.

“It is a very strange feeling to describe. Because in the end, we’ve been through all the pain and trauma and had no government support over the years,” she said.

Alexander and other families credit the residents of Cork, Ireland, who supported them when they arrived to identify the bodies of their loved ones.

The families did not know for days that everyone on board had died. Alexander said he believed his father was busy helping people as a 40-year-old surgeon who was “just starting out and was well respected in his community.”

This report from The Canadian Press was first published on July 14, 2022.