Kim Bolan, Canwest News Service - November 18, 2008

A controversial human rights group in India's Punjab region plans to release a report this weekend identifying new suspects it claims have confessed to the 1985 Air India bombing

Sarabjit Singh Verka, of the Punjab Human Rights Organization, says group investigators travelled the world, interviewing more than 100 people in several countries with knowledge of the bombing. Verka said they found multiple suspects "from the movement" who have admitted they were involved in the June 23, 1985, bombing plot centred in B.C. that killed 329 people aboard Flight 182 over the North Atlantic and two baggage handlers at Narita Airport in Japan. "The movement" is a reference to the struggle for Khalistan, a separate Sikh nation some want carved from Punjab. Verka said his group has been trying unsuccessfully to share its findings with the RCMP investigators from the Air India Task Force who are now in Punjab interviewing potential witnesses. Canadian police, he said, are refusing to meet with the organization except with Indian officials present - something Verka says is unacceptable. Verka wouldn't say more about the report or those purported to be the new suspects, but said the research paper will be publicly released "for the victims' families." "We are having a meeting this weekend and then we will release it," he said in a telephone interview from Punjab. Verka provided copies of e-mails between himself and task force investigator Insp. Bart Blachford about the request for a meeting. In his e-mail, Blachford says that a senior official of the Punjab group, Justice Ajit Singh Bains, and his son, Rajvinder, initially agreed to meet the RCMP along with India's Central Bureau of Investigation. "The RCMP received permission from the Indian Govt. to meet with the PHRO, in the presence of the CBI. Initially you and your father were in agreement to meet with the RCMP in Chandigarh under those conditions," Blachford wrote. "In a followup call with Cpl. (Dan) Sandhar and after speaking with your father, you and your father decided that you would not meet with us under the condition that the CBI be present at the meeting. Nor would you meet with us to discuss the situation. We have advised the CBI that no meeting will take place at your request." Blachford also said the RCMP would still like a copy of the report "in order to advance our investigation into the bombing of Kanishka," which is the name Air India gave the doomed airliner. But Verka told the Vancouver Sun that the human rights organization has lost faith in the RCMP because of its close relationship with Indian authorities and will give them nothing. In a subsequent e-mail to Blachford, the group denied there had been an agreement to meet with the CBI present. "That is not true that PHRO gives any permission for meeting in presence of any Indian Govt. Official, including CBI which already misled the investigators of this case for 23 years," the e-mail said. "The fact is that RCMP always shows faith (in) Indian Agencies and false witnesses and the result is failure of case and loss of hard taxes money of peoples of Canada." The PHRO, which has maintained close separatist ties since it began in 1985, has stirred controversy in connection with the Air India probe before. In June 2007, members flew to Ottawa with a former Punjab police officer witness to provide testimony about the in-custody death of Air India mastermind Talwinder Singh Parmar. But after arriving, the witnesses backed out, claiming to fear for their safety. Then in September 2007, Verka and Rajvinder Bains did testify at the inquiry about Parmar's alleged confession, in which they said he implicated Inderjit Singh Reyat, the only person ever convicted in the bombing, and Lakhbir Singh Brar, a leader of the now-banned International Sikh Youth Federation. Inquiry staff had billed the evidence from the human rights organization as "seismic," even though a senior RCMP officer later testified that police thoroughly investigated the purported Parmar confession a decade ago and concluded it contained false information. Insp. Lorne Schwartz told the inquiry that the RCMP learned about the Parmar confession in 1997 and followed up with interviews across Canada, in India and eventually in Pakistan. The PHRO provided the inquiry with an English translation of the alleged Parmar confession. It quoted Parmar saying he played a role in the June 1985 bombing, but only after he was approached by the ISYF leader who was then living in B.C. "He asked some help from me, doing these intense activities. After conferring with him for some time, I agreed to help," Parmar was quoted as saying of Brar. "He wanted to show the anger of the Sikhs to the whole world by doing some powerful explosions and to establish our recognition." Parmar said Brar brought Reyat to him four days later and "I was ready and the same three went in the car to the forest." But Brar does not match the description of the third man, dubbed Mr. X, whom Canadian agents watched enter the bush for a test blast with Parmar and Reyat. An RCMP team travelled to Pakistan in May 2001 to question Brar, who by then had been eliminated by police as a suspect in the Air India plot, Schwartz said. original link

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