New Delhi: One of the two hitmen who shot and killed Ripudaman Singh Malik—a suspect acquitted in the 1985 Kanishka Air India bombing—has been sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for 20 years.
British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Terence Schultes sentenced Tanner Fox for second-degree murder. Fox and co-accused, Jose Lopez, both in their early 20s, had pleaded guilty to the charge last October.
Prosecutor Matthew Stacey told the New Westminster court that the two men had planned a “deliberate killing” of Malik. Lopez’s sentencing will take place Friday.
Malik, a Canadian Sikh businessman, was found dead in his Tesla in Surrey, British Columbia, with multiple gunshot wounds on 14 July, 2022. He was outside his clothing import business, Papillon Eastern Imports, when the hit was carried out.
However, even as Fox got sentenced, little is known about the people who ordered the hit against Malik. Both men were originally charged with first-degree murder and admitted to being paid to kill him.
As the sentencing proceeded, Malik’s family emotionally appealed to the young men to reveal the names of those who wanted to get rid of him. “We plead with you to reveal the names of the people who hired you,” media reports quoted Malik’s daughter-in-law Sundeep Kaur Dhaliwal saying inside the New Westminster courtroom. In her testimony, Dhaliwal said the family felt unsafe and had unanswered questions.
“This fear and anxiety comes from not knowing who hired you,” Dhaliwal told Fox, adding, “Are we next?”
Earlier too, Malik’s family had sought punishment for those who had ordered the killing. “The work is not complete. Tanner Fox and Jose Lopez were hired to commit this murder. Until the parties responsible for hiring them and directing this assassination are brought to justice, the work remains incomplete,” the family had said in a statement.
Malik, who had migrated from Lahore to Punjab’s Ferozepur before Partition, moved to the US and finally settled in Canada in the 1970s.
Known as a “man with many enemies”, Malik was acquitted in 2005 in the British Columbia Supreme Court, along with his co-accused Ajaib Singh Bagri, of mass murder and conspiracy charges related to the deaths of 331 people in the Air India case.
Malik’s letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2022 and his rift with Sikh Separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar have been talking points after his murder. Nijjar was killed less than a year later in Surrey.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
True India got blamed for it. It looks pretty obvious. But when Nijjar got killed, Indian ultranationalist media started to show celebrate. ‘Ghus ke marenge’ was officially mentoined by prominent officials. There was no need to make such claims. This is what stirred up the pot and we ar where we are today.
Isn’t it quite obvious?
Khalistanis owing allegiance to Hardeep Singh Nijjar ordered the hit on Ripudaman Singh Malik.
In turn, loyalists of Malik gunned down Nijjar.
Unfortunately though, India got blamed for the Nijjar killing.