Ripudaman Singh Malik

Ripudaman Singh Malik came to Canada as a cab driver, became a millionaire and has spent the last 15 years accused of masterminding Canada’s worst act of terrorism.

Malik grew up in Punjab where his relatives remember him as a young devout who regularly made donations to Sikh temples, called “gurudwaras”.

He moved to British Columbia in 1972, and started off driving a cab. He opened an import clothing store and slowly built up assets until he became a driving force behind the Vancouver-area Khalsa Credit Union. The institution now has 16,000 members and assets worth $110 million.

In 1984, Malik, like many Sikhs, became infuriated by Operation Blue Star, an Indian government assault against militants holed up in the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Sikhism's holiest city in Punjab.

He reportedly became involved with Babbar Khalsa, an organization seeking to carve an independent Sikh state of Khalistan from India. The group is thought to have been involved in numerous terrorist incidents in Punjab and was eventually banned by the Canadian government in 2003 as a terrorist organization.

Through Babbar Khalsa, Malik forged close ties with Talwinder Singh Parmar, who headed one of the Babbar Khalsa factions.

It is Parmar who is thought to have masterminded the Air India attack. He allegedly asked Malik to help finance the attack, Inderjit Singh Reyat to build the bomb and Ajaib Singh Bagri to of transport the bomb to Vancouver airport.

On June 23, 1985, 329 passengers and crew were killed board Air India Flight 182.

Reyat was convicted in 1991 for a bombing on another Air India plane that exploded at Tokyo's Narita airport on the same day as Flight 182, killing two baggage handlers.

Parmar, meanwhile, was killed by the Punjab Police in 1992.

But for 15 years, Malik escaped arrest. In the late 1990s, the RCMP offered a $1-million reward and several witnesses began coming forward to claim Malik and Bagri had confessed to playing a part in the bombing.

Malik was arrested and charged in late October 2000 and has spent the last five years defending himself of what he says are false charges.

Ajaib Singh Bagri

Like his co-accused, Ripudaman Singh Malik, Ajaib Singh Bagri was born in Punjab, India and came to Canada in the early 1970s.

And also like Malik, Bagri was enraged by Operation Blue Star, the 1984 Indian assault against Sikh militants inside the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Sikhism's holiest city.

But Bagri’s lifestyle was nothing like the one lived by hid millionaire co-accused. Instead, Bagri lived a simple, modest lifestyle, holding down the same job as a forklift driver for the same sawmill in Kamloops for 13 years.

At some point, Bagri too became involved in Babbar Khalsa and allegedly became a key lieutenant of Talwinder Singh Parwar. After developing close contacts with many local politicians, Bagri was able to retain Babbar Khalsa's status as a non-profit organization.

In July, 1984, Bagri gave a speech to a gathering of Sikhs at Madison Square Gardens in New York furious with Operation Blue Star. Bagri reportedly called for the death of 50,000 Hindus as revenge, saying,"Until we kill 50,000 Hindus, we will not rest.”

Less than a year later, Air India Flight 182 exploded in mid-flight, killing 329 people, mostly Canadians of Indian descent.

He was arrested in June, 1986, with six others over a plot to plant a bomb aboard an Air-India plane departing New York, but was never charged.

Around the time Bagri was arrested for the Air India bombings in 2000, he was also charged with the 1988 attempt to murder Tara Singh Hayer, a Canadian Sikh journalist who founded the Indo-Canadian Times and who was an outspoken opponent of violent attempts to create a separate Sikh state in India.

Hayer survived the attempt on his life but was left partially paralyzed. Three weeks later, he was shot to death in his wheelchair in his garage. Harkirat Singh Bagga was convicted of being the triggerman in that attack.

In January 2004, prosecutors were forced to stay the attempted murder charge against Bagri because of a lack of evidence. Hayer’s family expects the charges will be laid again.