‘Grotesque twist’ — Purported poster of Canadian event ‘honouring’ Kanishka bombing ‘mastermind’ criticised

Purported poster of car rally addresses late Khalistani militant Talwinder Singh Parmar as 'martyr' & calls for investigating 'India’s role' in the Air India Flight 182 bombing, which killed 329.

The car rally poster as shared by journalist Terri Milewski | Twitter: @CBCTerry

New Delhi: Purported posters of a Canadian car rally addressing late Khalistani militant Talwinder Singh Parmar as a “shaheed [martyr]” were shared on social media Saturday, hitting out at the event for “honouring him at the memorial to his victims”. Parmar was allegedly the mastermind behind the Air India Flight 182 bombing in 1985, also known as the Kanishka Bombing, which was the worst aviation attack in history until 9/11.

The Boeing 747, named ‘Emperor Kanishka’, was bombed over the Irish waters while travelling from Montreal to the erstwhile Bombay on 23 June 1985. All 329 people onboard — 268 Canadians (mostly of Indian descent), 27 Britons and 24 Indians — were killed.

The Canadian police suspected Parmar to be the mastermind behind the attack, but charges against him were later dropped. Parmar, who continued to advocate for the Khalistan movement, subsequently died in a gunfight with Punjab police in 1992.

According to the poster on social media, purportedly for the ‘Shaheed Bhai Talwinder Singh Parmar Khalistan Car Rally’, shared by Canadian journalist and author of the book ‘Blood for Blood — Fifty Years of the Global Khalistan Project’ Terry Milewski on Twitter, the event is set to be held in Toronto two days after the anniversary of the Air India bombing, on 25 June.

The purported poster also calls for a probe into “India’s role in 1985 Kanishka Bombing”. The rally is set to conclude at the memorial for the victims of the bombing at Humber Bay Park West, Toronto.

In a series of tweets, Milewski said, “Ensuring that their reputation stays at rock-bottom, Canadian Khalistanis again pick as their poster boy the psychopath who bombed Air India, Talwinder Parmar.”

Milewski added: “He murdered 331 innocents for nothing. And – a grotesque twist – he’ll be honoured at the memorial to his victims.”

The journalist-writer further alleged, “It’s another mad bid to whitewash Canada’s worst-ever mass-murderer by demanding that Canada ‘investigate India’s role’ in the bombing. But decades of investigations proved that India had no such role and that Parmar led the bomb plot. The rally is about spreading a lie.”

In response to Milewski’s tweet, Tajinder Singh Sran, a BJP leader from Chandigarh, wrote, “All those pro-Khalistanis coming to this anti-India rally should be identified & their passports cancelled, (and) if Canadian citizens (go to the rally) their entry (should) be banned in India, their properties in India be confiscated. Strong message should be given to Trudeau govt on this (sic).”

Khalistani movement & Canada

The rally comes months after the Indian high commissions in several countries, including Canada, were attacked by pro-Khalistani elements. According to reports, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) is set to investigate the attacks in Canada and the United States.

The purported “honour” at the upcoming rally is not the first time that Parmar has been felicitated by pro-Khalistani elements outside India. In 2019, US-based Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) had issued an advertisement in his honour. The advertisement was shared ahead of the SFJ-organised “Khalistan referendum”.

In 2018, Jagmeet Singh, leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP) in Canada, when asked by news channel CBC about posters of Parmar being displayed in gurudwaras, had said, “Personally, I think the displaying of a picture of Mr. Parmar is something that re-traumatizes and hurts and injures people that are suffering so much in terms of that loss in their lives.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, when asked during his India visit the same year about the reports of Parmar’s posters being put up in some gurdwaras in the country, had said, “I do not think that we should ever be glorifying mass murderers and I am happy to condemn that.”

(Edited by Smriti Sinha)