Canadian Police overheard militants' conversation before blast

TORONTO: Canadian police overheard conversations between members of Sikh militant groups Babbar Khalsa and the International Sikh Youth Federation in secret tapes 11 days before the 1985 Air India bombing that killed 329 people but did not realise the usefulness of the information.

The officer who recorded the comment on Tuesday during an inquiry was unaware that there had been threats to Air India, but passed the information to Canada's national police and spy agencies before the attack.

"Once I heard of the explosion, that's the thought I had connecting the two elements," former Vancouver Police Department officer Don McLean testified.

The police could not realise the importance of the conversation as there was no specific target and the language used was Punjabi, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported.

"No ambassadors have been killed. What are you going to do? Nothing?" one man laments in Punjabi in the June 12, 1985 recording, according to the report.

"You will see something done in two weeks," the other replies in the tape, it said.

Former Supreme Court justice John Major is examining the events surrounding the 1985 attack.