The top suspect in the deadly bombing of Air India Flight 182 admitted playing a role in the 1985 attack that left 329 people dead, according to evidence presented to a public inquiry Monday.

Talwinder Singh Parmar admitted involvement seven years later during questioning by Indian police, according to evidence presented to the inquiry.

But Parmar, once the head of the militant Sikh separatist group Babbar Khalsa, reportedly told the Indian authorities that others played a more significant role in the plot.

In what was described as a summary of his interrogation, Parmar claimed the bomb plot wasn't his idea but that he went along with it.

"I agreed to arrange (for) the dynamite sticks,'' he is quoted as saying in the material tabled Monday.

He attempts to shift blame to Lakhbir Singh Brar, a prominent member of India's Sikh separatist movement at the time, and Inderjit Singh Reyat, the only person ever convicted in a Canadian court in connection with the case.

Critics in both Canada and India, however, have questioned the claims that Brar was the mastermind of the attack.

Inquiry head John Major, a former Supreme Court justice, noted on Monday that the claims would be taken with a grain of salt.

Just because the material, made public in documents provided by the Punjab Human Rights Organization, had been entered in evidence didn't mean he was deciding on its credibility, Major said.

"It may be true, it may not be true," he said.

RCMP Insp. Lorne Schwartz testified that the Mounties knew about the supposed Parmar confession as early as 1997, when they were approached by "various sources'' telling much the same story that was heard at the inquiry on Monday.

Internal RCMP documents indicated the force spent years investigating the matter, even though there was a suspicion that anything Parmar said had been obtained under duress.

Schwartz noted that even when there is "distastefulness'' in the way information emerges, an investigator's job is to find out whether the story can be confirmed.

"We followed up on it fully,'' said Schwartz.

But he added that some of the information from Parmar's statement conflicted with facts known by the Mounties.

Parmer was arrested shortly after the bombing but the RCMP didn't have enough evidence to hold him and he was eventually deported.

He left Canada several years later.

Indian authorities said Parmar died in a shootout with police in the Punjab in 1992. But there have been unconfirmed claims that he was interrogated, possibly under torture, before he was killed.

Controversy arose early in the summer when Indian officials travelled to Canada to testify on the matter, then backed out when Major said he couldn't fully guarantee their anonymity.

Sarabjit Singh, the human rights group's secretary general, and Rajvinder Singh Bains, the group's legal counsel, had travelled to Ottawa along with Harmail Singh Chandi, a former Punjab police officer said to be familiar with Parmar's capture and interrogation.

After their return to India in June, an Indian magazine reported that Chandi, who reportedly arrested Parmar in 1992, still had taped recordings of the five days of interrogations that he had held onto despite orders to destroy them.

A spokesperson for the inquiry confirmed to The Canadian Press on Sunday that Bains and Sarabit Singh will take the stand this week, but there was no word on whether Chandi will also testify.

Flight 182 was travelling from Canada to India when it was brought down by bombs over Ireland on June 23, 1985. All 329 people on board were killed. Another bombing on the same day killed two baggage handlers at Narita airport in Japan.

Parmar is said to have told police that Vancouver Island resident Inderjit Singh Reyat prepared the suitcases with bombs for two flights, while Brar arranged the booking of the plane tickets.

More RCMP witnesses are expected to testify at the hearings this week. They are likely to be questioned on how they dealt with past tips about Parmar's supposed confession.

There will also be questions about whether that confession would be of any use to the inquiry since it would likely be inadmissible in a Canadian court over suspicions it was obtained through torture.

With files from The Canadian Press