Former Punjab police boss could ask to rebut testimony
Kim Bolan, CanWest News Service
Published: Monday, September 24, 2007The former head of the Punjab Police says if a controversial human rights group is allowed to testify at the Air India inquiry about the death of the bombing mastermind, he should also have a chance to provide evidence here.
But K.P.S. Gill said in an interview from Delhi Sunday that he has not been approached by the Air India inquiry about allegations police under his charge killed Canadian Talwinder Singh Parmar back in October 1992 after Parmar confessed to a role in the Air India bombing.
"I would consider testifying if my security was guaranteed," said Gill, who receives regular death threats over his suppression of Sikh militants in Punjab in the 1990s.
Two witnesses from the Punjab Human Right Organization have travelled from India to testify today.
They are expected to relay information provided to them by former Punjab Police officer Harmail Singh Chandi, who claims he arrested Parmar and that the founder of the Sikh independence group Babbar Khalsa was interrogated for days before being killed.
The official Indian version of Parmar's death has always been that he was killed in an encounter with police.
But the RCMP's Air India Task Force also received information about the alleged Parmar confession five years ago, which was thoroughly investigated and disclosed during pre-trial arguments of the Air India criminal case.
Gill said the PHRO "are used to making false propaganda statements." And he said the PHRO and other so-called human rights groups in Punjab have received much of their funding from pro-Khalistan organizations outside of India.
"They have no real interests in human rights - like the human rights of thousands and thousands and thousands of civilians who were slaughtered by the terrorists and they have not condemned any of those murders," Gill said.
Gill repeated what he told The Vancouver Sun in 2003 - that when Parmar was killed, he got a call from an underling telling him about a "police encounter." He said he went to the location where he had been told the killing had occurred and saw the bodies of Parmar and several others.
"The whole matter was thoroughly inquired into . . . after the death of this man," Gill said.
But he said that despite his Canadian citizenship, Parmar, who was in India for four years prior to his death, was seen as a "criminal."
"To our mind basically he was a criminal committing crimes in Punjab. We wouldn't invite the RCMP to come over saying `oh maybe he'll help with your case.' We would deal with him ourselves," Gill said.
The two PHRO witnesses and Chandi travelled here to testify in June, billed only as mystery witnesses with "seismic evidence" about the Air India bombing.
But they refused to testify, telling Commissioner John Major they were too fearful.
They then returned to India, where the PHRO disclosed everything about its Parmar investigation to an Indian magazine.
Tehelka magazine quoted Chandi saying Parmar implicated Inderjit Singh Reyat; a long-identified suspect who called himself both Manjit and Lal Singh; and Lakhbir Singh Brar, a founder of the International Sikh Youth Federation, who once lived in Vancouver.
Tehelka also quoted the PHRO saying Brar was likely an Indian government agent.
Brar's supporters strongly denied he had anything to do with the bombing or was linked to the Indian government.
The inquiry attempted to set the scene on Friday for some of today's expected evidence.
Inquiry lawyer Brian Gover asked former top Canadian spy Jack Hooper how the agency would deal with "compromised" information such as evidence obtained by torture.
Hooper, who retired from CSIS last May, said the service did not run into the scenario often.
"I can't even imagine a circumstance, short of admission by the originating agency, where we would be able to with any degree of confidence determine that information was extracted through human rights abuses or torture," Hooper said.
"Compromised information will be shared as appropriate and certainly with admonitions as to its reliability."
He was also asked about the theory, long advocated by Sikh separatists, that the Air India bombing was committed by India to discredit the Khalistan movement.
Asked Gover: "Did you ever put any stock in the theory that in some way the Government of India was responsible for the bombing of Air India Flight 182?"
"I personally did not," replied Hooper. "Nor did that theory enjoy a wide constituency of support within the Canadian Security Intelligence Service."
Vancouver Sun
kbolan@png.canwest.com
Be smarter than spam. See how smart SpamGuard is at giving junk email the boot with the All-new Yahoo! Mail
