Ripudaman Singh Malik. Credit: twitter handle of Sonam Mahajan
A white Honda CRV reportedly identified by the Police was linked to the targeted killing of Ripudaman Singh Malik, who was acquitted in 2005 over the bombing of a 1985 Air India flight.
At 9:27 a.m. was shot dead in his car in Surrey, B.C., on Thursday following which the SUV was found on fire around 10 a.m., in the area of 82 Avenue and 122A Street.
There were mixed reactions on Thursday to the death of Malik, an influential businessman who had significant influence within Canada’s Sikh community.
While some said the community had lost one a respected advocate, others thought only of the bombings.
Footage of a white Honda CRV believed to have been used by the person, or people, responsible for the killing was released by the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT) on Friday.
According to IHIT the SUV parked around 7 a.m. PT and waited for Malik outside Papillon Eastern Imports, the family business at 8236 128 Street for more than an hour.
Investigators said they were still canvassing for CCTV footage and couldn’t determine at that time if the shooting itself had been caught on video and asked people with any clue about this to contact IHIT
Malik ran the Papillon clothing company with his family in the building where he was killed.
in 2005, Malik and his co-accused, Ajaib Singh Bagri, were acquitted of mass murder and conspiracy charges related to the pair of bombings in 1985 that proved fatal for 331 people, mostly from the Toronto and Vancouver areas.
Besides serving as chairman of Khalsa School and managing two of the private schools’ campuses in Surrey and Vancouver in recent years, he was the president of the Vancouver-based Khalsa Credit Union which had more than 16,000 members.
After confirming Malik’s identity on Thursday, IHIT acknowledged his high-profile link to the bombings, and officers were still working to determine a motive behind the bombings.
Only one man, Inderjit Singh Reyat was convicted in relation to the 1985 bombings and served 30 years for lying during two trials and for helping to make the bombs at his home in Duncan, B.C.
It was alleged by Crown lawyers that the bombing was a terrorist attack against state-owned Air India to avenge the B.C.-based Sikh extremists against the Indian government for ordering the army to raid the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Sikhism’s holiest shrine in June 1984.
In 2005 after a highly publicized trial that stretched on for years, Malik, then 58, and Bagri, then 55, were acquitted .
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