Talwinder Singh Parmar

Talwinder Singh Parmar was a Sikh preacher born in Punjab who emigrated to Canada in 1970 and became the best-known leader of the Babbar Khalsa abroad. The Canadian Encyclopedia names him as the group's founder, and ABC News reported that police say he founded it in 1978.

Key moments

• 1981. India accused him of murdering a policeman.
• 1985 and 1986. He was arrested in Canada in November 1985 and released for lack of evidence, and arrested again at Hamilton, Ontario, in 1986 over an alleged plot against the Indian parliament. That trial collapsed.
• 4 June 1985. CSIS agents followed him to Duncan, on Vancouver Island. Minutes after he, Inderjit Singh Reyat and another man entered the woods, the agents heard an explosion.
• 23 June 1985. Air India Flight 182 was bombed off Ireland and 329 people died. The RCMP task force considers Parmar the mastermind, and The Tribune reports that Canadian police believed he masterminded the attack. The only charges ever laid against him were minor explosives charges, later dropped. He was never tried for the bombing.
• 1988. He left Canada and set up a base in Pakistan, near Lahore according to police allegations reported by ABC News.
• 15 October 1992. He died in Punjab. Indian police called it an encounter. Ensaaf lists it as an extrajudicial execution after an abduction on 8 or 9 October 1992, and the Canadian Encyclopedia says police falsely claimed an encounter when he had been arrested, tortured and killed in custody.

After his death Canada's case went on without him. Inderjit Singh Reyat was convicted of manslaughter, and in March 2005 Justice Ian Josephson of the British Columbia Supreme Court found Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri not guilty, saying the Crown's evidence had fallen markedly short.

He is remembered as a founder and overseas leader of the Babbar Khalsa, and as the man Canadian police hold responsible for the Air India 182 bombing, a charge that was never tested against him in court.