The AI Inquiry Commission has said it would keep on record an article that claims to have revealed Kanishka bombing mastermind TS Parmar's confession.
TORONTO: The Air India Inquiry Commission has said it would keep on record an article published in an Indian weekly that claims to have revealed Kanishka bombing mastermind Talwinder Singh Parmar's confession about his involvement in the 1985 tragedy that killed 329 people.
Michael Tansey, spokesman for the Air India inquiry, said the Commission became aware of the 'Tehelka' newspaper report late on Friday but cannot say much about the information it contains.
"The information is of interest to the Commission," Tansey said on Monday, "It is pertinent to the work the Commission is doing."
He would not say whether the information is the evidence that the inquiry had hoped to hear in June when a mystery witness refused to take the stand, even with his identity shielded.
But Tansey did say that he expected the earlier evidence to make it into the official record in some form when the inquiry resumes on September 10.
According to the Tehelka report, Parmar's confession states: "Around May 1985, a functionary of the International Sikh Youth Federation came to me and introduced himself as Lakhbir Singh and asked me for help in conducting some violent activities to express the resentment of the Sikhs.
"I told him to come after a few days so that I could arrange for dynamite and battery etc. He told me that he would first like to see a trial of the blast... After about four days, Lakhbir Singh and another youth, Inderjit Singh Reyat, both came to me. We went into the jungle (of British Columbia). There we joined a dynamite stick with a battery and triggered off a blast".
A former Punjab Police officer has said he was an eye witness when Parmar confessed about his involvement in the tragedy, the article claimed.
According to Harmail Singh Chandi, who had said he was too fearful to testify at the Air India inquiry, he was present when Parmar admitted to his involvement in the bombing during an intensive interrogation over five days in October 1992, Tehelka reported.
Chandi first approached the RCM's Air India Task Force in 2002 and some of the information he provided came out during pre-trial arguments in the trial of Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, two other accused who were aquitted in the trial. Chandi then approached the judicial inquiry headed by John Major, but refused to testify once he arrived in Ottawa.
But the identity of the retired Punjab police officer had been protected until now.
Punjab police have maintained that Parmar died in a shoot-out with police, but his family has always contradicted the official version.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has so far declined comment.
Parmar said "Lakhbir Singh, Inderjit Singh and their accomplice, Manjit Singh, made a plan to plant bombs in an Air India plane leaving from Toronto via London for Delhi and another flight that was to leave Tokyo for Bangkok," the weekly reported.
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