A contract killer in Canada was convicted on Tuesday (local time) of murdering an acquitted suspect in the 1985 Air India bombings that claimed 331 lives. Tanner Fox was sentenced to life in prison for killing Ripudaman Singh Malik, who was shot dead outside his business in July 2022. Tanner Fox and his associate Jose Lopez pleaded guilty last October to the second-degree murder of Malik. They confessed that they were paid to carry out the killing in a suburb of Vancouver in western Canada, but they did not disclose who paid them. Lopez's next court appearance is scheduled for February 6.
About the Kanishka Bombing
On June 23, 1985, Air India flight 182 from Toronto, Canada, to Mumbai, India, exploded off the Irish coast, killing all 329 people on board. The jet disintegrated in midair just 45 minutes from its destination. No warning or emergency calls were issued. The aircraft operating the flight was a Boeing 747-237B registered as VT-EFO and named Emperor Kanishka.
The attack was considered the deadliest aviation terrorism incident until the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. Most of the passengers on the flight were Canadian citizens who were visiting relatives in India. Simultaneously, another explosion was reported at Narita airport in Japan, claiming the lives of two baggage handlers who were loading luggage onto an Air India aircraft. Both suitcase bombs were later traced back to Vancouver, home to a large Sikh immigrant population.
According to Canadian government reports, the bombings were believed to have been carried out by Canadian-based Sikh separatists in revenge for the Indian Army's 'Operation Blue Star' at the Golden Temple in Punjab. Five months after the disaster, two suspects—Talwinder Singh Parmar and Inderjit Singh Reyat—were arrested. Charges against Parmar, who was believed to be the mastermind behind the attack, were dropped due to lack of evidence.
Two accused individuals—Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri—were arrested in 2000, but they were also acquitted in 2005 due to insufficient evidence. Inderjit Singh Reyat is the only person to have been convicted in the plot, for making the bombs and for lying at the trials of Malik and Bagri.
