Canada Police Identifies ‘Mysterious’ Suspect In Kanishka Bombing, Refuses To Disclose Identity

Last Updated:June 21, 2025, 14:09 IST

The RCMP identified a man who helped test a bomb before the Air India bombing on June 23, 1985, but won't disclose his name. The man recently died without facing charges.

Canada Police Identifies ‘Mysterious’ Suspect In Kanishka Bombing (Image: AP/File)

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)  have finally identified the mysterious man who helped test a bomb on Vancouver Island a few weeks before the Air India bombing on June 23, 1985. The police, however, have refused to disclose the name. The Air India flight took off from Canada’s Montreal and was bound for Mumbai.

According to Canadian media reports, RCMP Asst. Commissioner David Teboul said that the previously unidentified suspect in the mass murder case recently died without ever facing charges.

He said he couldn’t release the name of the man due to privacy laws, even though he’s now dead.

Teboul revealed this ahead of the 40th anniversary (June 23) of the incident in which all 329 (307 passengers and 22 crew members) on board flight AI 182 were killed. Dozens of relatives of victims arrived to attend the service, who died when a B.C.-made bomb exploded on Air India Flight 182 off the coast of Ireland.

Federal Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree will lead the Canadian delegation. Irish Prime Minister Michael Martin is scheduled to attend, along with local officials and a representative of the Indian government.

AI 182 was flying towards London for a stopover in the British capital when the bomb exploded, and the remnants of the aircraft fell into a sea off the coast of Ireland.

Teboul, who is the commander of federal policing in B.C., said that despite the acquittals of two key bombing suspects in 2005, investigators have continued to work on the file “to tie up some loose ends", and this led them to uncover the identity of the mysterious man.

The mysterious man dubbed Mr. X had travelled to Duncan on June 4, 1985, with terror plot mastermind Talwinder Singh Parmar. The two men then joined up with electrician Inderjit Singh Reyat.

The three individuals entered the woods to test a bomb while being surveilled by Canadian Security Intelligence Service agents. Although the agents heard the explosion, they initially mistook it for a gunshot.

Parmar, founder of the Babbar Khalsa Sikh separatist group, was killed by police in Punjab in 1992 before he could be charged in the Air India terrorism plot. Reyat pleaded guilty to assisting Mr X and Parmar in developing the Air India bomb. 

However, he later testified that he didn’t know the name of Mr. X. He was later convicted of perjury.

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News world Canada Police Identifies ‘Mysterious’ Suspect In Kanishka Bombing, Refuses To Disclose Identity