Sikh leader, Ripudaman Malik, acquitted in 1985 Air India bombing shot dead outside his office in Canada

JALANDHAR: Canada-based Sikh businessman Ripudaman Singh Malik, a suspect in the 1985 Air India Kanishka bombing who was acquitted in 2005, was shot dead outside his office on Thursday morning.
Before his acquittal by Canadian courts, Malik remained in jail for over four years from 2000 to 2004 over allegations that he had financed those who hatched the conspiracy to bomb the Air India flight in which 329 persons were killed.
In his early seventies, Vancouver resident Malik was about to get out of his car at about 9 am local time when an assailant pumped bullets into him in the parking space outside the warehouse of his business brand Papillon in the Canadian city of Surrey. He used to travel daily to his office from Vancouver.
The gunman’s face was covered completely and had guns in both of his hands, according to sources, who visited the spot just after the attack on Malik.
Later, a burning car was spotted at some distance from the scene of the crime outside this office.
In Jan, Malik thanked PM for steps taken for Sikhs
Malik wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January this year just before the Punjab assembly polls, praising him for reaching out to the Sikh community.
“Not only those in the country, the Sikh Sangat of other countries is also thanking Modiji for the steps he had taken for Sikhs,” he wrote. At the same time, he also issued an appeal to the Sikh community arguing that it was not right to unfairly criticise PM Modi given his many positive gestures towards the Sikh community. This letter was posted by Punjab BJP on its office Facebook page with Malik’s photo- graph. In a separate appeal to the Sikh community, Malik had also said that it was not right to unfairly criticize the PM given his many positive gestures towards the Sikh community and had argued that in place of criticizing “we should be appreciating and engaging meaningfully with the Government of India under his leadership towards apositive partnership for the future.”
BJP national spokesperson R P Singh tweeted on Thursday night that “he may have been targeted by radicals for his appreciation of steps taken by his GOI for the Sikhs.”
Malik had visited India only a few weeks back in May-June. Former Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee president Manjit Singh GK said that Malik had returned to Canada on June 6-7 last after staying in India for over a fortnight. “He had always worked for the community and his latest and biggest concern was to make Birs of Guru Granth Sahib available to the Sikhs living abroad,” GK said.
Former DSGMC president Paramjit Singh Sarna expressed shock at Malik’s killing, saying: “The loss is irreparable. Sardar Malik ran a number of Khalsa schools and was at the forefront of humanitarian efforts in Canada.”
Malik had visited India after a gap of 25 years in November-December 2019 when the Government of India scrapped the ‘Black List of Sikhs.’ After his 2019 visit, his brother Jasjit Singh Malik had told TOI that it was Ripudaman Singh Malik’s longcherished desire, actually his last wish, to visit Darbar Sahib in Amritsar and when they reached Darbar Sahib after over two decades, his brother’s eyes had welled up while looking at the sanctum sanctorum.
“He has shared his desire with many, including the Indian Sikh leaders visiting Canada, and he would seek their help to get an Indian visa saying that he once wanted to visit Darbar Sahib before his death. However, after the ‘Black List’ was scrapped, he applied for the visa and he got it in routine,” said Jasjit Singh Malik, who runs a garment export business in Delhi. “He visited Darbar Sahib three times during this visit as he wanted to satiate his strongest desire and we also visited other gurdwaras apart from visiting a few relatives,” he said.
Malik could not visit India after 1984 till his father’s death in January 1994. “At that time, he got the visa for a year due to our father’s death and after January he visited close to the year-end in 1994. Later, he was denied a visa even as he was acquitted in the Air India bombing case,” his brother had said.