Air India Flight 182 - Plot Preparations

Plot Preparations

In late 1984, at least two informers reported to authorities of the first abortive plot to bomb Air India Flight 182, which flew out of Montreal at that time. In August 1984, known criminal Gerry Boudreault claimed Talwinder Parmar showed him a suitcase stuffed with $200,000, payment to plant a bomb, but decided "I had done some bad things in my time, done my time in jail, but putting a bomb on a plane … not me. I went to the police." In September, in an attempt to get his sentence for theft and fraud reduced, Harmail Singh Grewal of Vancouver told the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) of the plot to bomb the flight out of Montreal. Both reports were dismissed as unreliable.

Moderate Sikh Ujjal Dosanjh had spoken out against violence by Sikh extremists. In retaliation he was attacked on February 1985 by an assailant wielding an iron bar, breaking his hand and requiring 80 stitches in his head. On 5 March 1985, Canada's CSIS domestic intelligence agency obtained a court order to place Parmar under surveillance for one year, just three months before the bombing. Although the Babbar Khalsa had not yet been officially banned, the affidavit stated it "is a Sikh terrorist group now established in Canada", "has claimed responsibility for more than forty assassinations of moderate Sikhs and other persons in the Punjab" and "penned its name to threatening letters ... high officials in India". It noted that in Calgary, Alberta, on 15 July 1984, Parmar urged the Coach Temple congregation to "unite, fight and kill" to avenge the attack on the Golden Temple.