Talwinder Singh Parmar

Talwinder Singh Parmar was born in a Sikh family of village Panchhat, Kapurthala, Punjab, India on 26 February 1944. He immigrated to Canada in May 1970, Parmar would marry and have 3 children by 1978. ==Militancy==

As per The Tribune, Parmar and Sukhdev Singh took the pledge to take revenge on the Sant Nirankari Mission, a sub-sect of the Nirankari sect of Sikhism. The pledge followed the 1978 Sikh–Nirankari clash, which saw 13 Sikh killed and 150 injured, Nirankari were also expelled by the Akal Takht out of the Sikh fold. Sukhdev founded the organization Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) along with Parmar with the objective to secede from India and form the state of Khalistan for Sikhs. Babbar Khalsa's first goals were to kill Nirankaris indiscriminately, including the Nirankari head and the "Nirankari Seven Stars" who were the Sant Nirankari version of the Panj Pyare. In 1984, BKI publicly claimed responsibility for killing 35 Nirankaris and later in the same year 78 Nirankaris. On 9 September 1981, Lala Jagat Narain was assassinated. Jagat was a former Punjab Legislative Assembly member and a former Member of Parliament. He was also the founder of Hind Samachar. Jagat was an outspoken critic of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and of the Khalistan movement. Parmar claimed responsibility. Bhindranwale would be accused of the murder and offered himself to the police for arrest on 20 September 1981. On the day of his arrest, three armed men, from BKI, on a motorcycle opened fire using machine guns in a market in Jalandhar in retaliation, killing four people and injured twelve. The next day, in another incident at Tarn Taran one Hindu man was killed and thirteen people were injured. On 14 October 1981 Bhindranwale would be released by Zail Singh. Murder charges and arrest On 19 November 1981, the Punjab Police were looking for Tarsem Singh Kalasinghian and his accomplices, when an encounter took place at Daheru village in Ludhiana district in which Police Inspector Pritam Singh Bajwa and Constable Surat Singh of Jalandhar were gunned down. All of the militants hiding in a house of Amarjit Singh Nihang managed to escape. Among those named in the First Information Report (FIR) were Parmar, Wadhwa Singh. Amarjit Singh Nihang, Amarjit Singh (Head Constable), Sewa Singh (Head Constable) and Gurnam Singh (Head Constable). This is believed to be the first act which gained BKI and its chief, Parmar, notoriety. Parmar became BKI's leader in Canada in 1979. After Parmar's return to Canada in 1984 following his incarceration in West Germany for a year, In 1982, India issued a warrant for Parmar's arrest for six charges of murder, stemming from the killing of police officers and an Interpol alert would be issued. In 1983, he was arrested in Germany on charges of murdering two police officers in Punjab in 1981. Parmar went on a hunger strike in jail for his right to wear a turban and have vegetarian meals. Parmar was acquitted by German authorities and then returned to Canada. India requested for his extradition from Canada, but the request was turned down, and Canada declined to extradite Singh to India. On 4 April 1985, Parmar would be wiretapped by Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) where he discussed a plot to assassinate Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in the US with one Jang Singh. ==Bombing of Air India 182 and 301==

On 23 June 1985, Air India Flight 182 was bombed. It was a part of an attempted double-bombing which included Air India Flight 301. In March 2005 judgment, Justice Josephson of the British Columbia Supreme Court concluded that one of the leaders of the conspiracy was Parmar. It remains the worst terrorist attack in Canadian history and was the world's deadliest act of aviation terrorism until the September 11 attacks in 2001. From the time of Parmar's return to Canada following his incarceration in West Germany, he was considered a person of interest to the Canadian authorities. Surveillance on Parmar began as early as 1982, with agents being sent to follow his movements. CSIS regared Parmar as the most dangerous Sikh in Canada by 1984. A warrant under the CSIS Act to intercept communications on Parmar was sought in a federal court and granted on 14 March 1985. Planning Parmar was believed to have been planning terror attacks targeting India as early as 1984 when he arrived in Canada. Between his arrival and the Air India bombing Parmar began recruiting for BKI across Canada and the United States. In August 1984 known criminal, Gerry Boudreault, claimed to be offered $200,000 by Parmar to place a bomb on Air India 182 from Montreal. In September 1984 a man named Harmail Singh Grewal, in an attempt to bargain down his sentence, offered to provide information to CSIS and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) about a plot to put a bomb on Air India 182 in Montreal. Grewal was dismissed by authorities as unreliable for which CSIS would later face criticism. On 1 June, Air India headquarters from Bombay reported to the RCMP of intelligence to plant a time-bomb on an Air India flight timed to explode over Europe. On 4 June, a CSIS team followed Parmar as he travelled with an unidentified young man, known as "Mr. X.". The car was followed to Duncan and the home of Inderjit Singh Reyat. Reyat and Parmar were seen entering the woods where soon after, a large blast would be heard. Following this CSIS agents observed something being placed in Parmar's trunk and Mr. X and Reyat being dropped off at Reyat's residence. Invesitgators believe they were testing the detonation system which would be placed in Air India 182 and 301. On 9 June, a police informer in Hamilton reported that Parmar and Ajaib Singh Bagri had visited the Malton Sikh Temple, warning the faithful that "it would be unsafe" to fly Air India. Vancouver police also monitored militants 11 days before the bombing. A leader of the International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF) complained that no Indian consuls or ambassadors had yet been killed, but was given the response of, "You will see. Something will be done in two weeks." Parmar and his accomplices used payphones and talked in code. Translators' notes of wiretapped conversations include the following exchange between Parmar and a follower named Hardial Singh Johal on 20 June 1985, the day the tickets were purchased: This conversation appears to be an order from Parmar to book the airline tickets. It is believed that "writing the story" referred to purchasing the tickets; afterward, Johal phoned Parmar back and asked if he could "come over and read the story he asked for", to which Parmar agreed. M. Singh checked in his luggage for Air India 182, which contained the bomb, 3 hours before the flight and did not board. L. Singh did the same for Air India 301. One telephone number left as a contact was Vancouver's Ross Street Sikh temple. The other number became one of the first leads tracked by investigators, and was traced to Johal, a janitor at a Vancouver high school. Johal was an avid follower of Parmar, and thus closely scrutinized in the investigation following the Air India bombing. He was alleged to have stored the suitcase explosives in the basement of a Vancouver school and to have purchased the tickets for the flights on which the bombs were placed. Mandip Singh Grewal recounted how he saw and recognized Johal as his school's janitor when he said goodbye to his father, one of the Flight 182 victims, at the airport on the day of the bombing. Air India 182 exploded off coast of Dublin over the Atlantic ocean. Everyone on board, 307 passengers and 22 crew, was killed, including 82 infants. Aftermath On 8 November Parmar was arrested by authorities and charged, but later these charges were dropped due to lack of evidence. == After Air India bombing ==

On 1 June 1986, 5 BKI members were arrested for plotting to bomb an Air India flight headed to New Delhi from New York City. The arrested were close associates of Parmar and he was later arrested in connection with the conspiracy, while out on bail, but later released. A week after publishing his August report, Hayer survived an attempt on his life that left him in a wheelchair. He was shot in his newspaper's office by Harkirat Singh Bagga, a youth who later pleaded guilty to attempted murder. Bagga was one of the suspects behind the Air India bombing. The .357 Magnum that he used was provided by a California man who was also the owner of a gun found in the residence of Reyat, the only person convicted in the Air India bombing. Parmar is believed to have been involved in the conspiracy against Hayer's life. Throughout this period Parmar accumulated much wealth through the collection of donations and shaheedi funds (martyrdom funds). Parmar would purchase four separate homes. In 1988 Parmar would flee to Pakistan. ==Death==

In August 1992 Parmar's associate Sukhdev Singh would be killed by Punjab Police who were crushing the insurgency in Punjab through Operation Rakshak II. Parmar was killed in an alleged encounter with the Punjab police on 15 October 1992 as he attempted to cross the Indian-Pakistan border into India. Parmar had framed ISYF and Lakhbir Singh Rode as the mastermind of the Air India 182 bombing during interrogation. == Legacy ==

In July 2023, posters of Parmar were seen in several places in Canada advertising a car rally in his honour. The posters referred to Parmar as a "shaheed" (martyr). The posters were widely condemned by the Canadian government and by many Sikh Canadians. The Canadian government called the posters "disgusting" and said that they "glorify violence and terrorism." Many Sikh Canadians also expressed their disgust at the posters, saying that they did not represent the views of the Khalistani. The Khalistan Liberation Force, a militant outfit, defended the posters, saying that they were honouring a "martyr" who had fought for the Sikh cause. ==References==