Key witness in the Air India trial Inderjit Singh Reyat's daughter was married to former leader of Babbar Khalsa who faced terrorism charges with two of the other suspects in the Kanishka case raising questions about the testimony given by the accused this week.
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One of Reyat's daughters was married this summer to the son of a former leader of the Babbar Khalsa, who once faced terrorism charges with two Air India suspects.
The arranged marriage of Charanjit Kaur Reyat and Tejpal Singh Kaloe took place at a Hamilton Sikh temple over the summer break in the Air India trial, which resumed this week after a three-month hiatus, a media report has said.
Tejpal is the son of Tejinder Singh Kaloe, the long-time head of the Ontario Babbar Khalsa who was arrested in 1986 along with accused Air India bomber Ajaib Singh Bagri and suspected Air India mastermind Talwinder Singh Parmar.
The trio and several other members of the Babbar Khalsa were charged with various terrorism offences in Hamilton related to a conspiracy to attack targets in India, Canadian daily Vancouver Sun reported.
The charges against Bagri were dropped soon afterwards for lack of evidence, while the others were freed months later after defence lawyers raised concerns about how warrants were obtained to authorise wiretaps on the phones of the accused.
Kaloe was represented in the 1986 case by Toronto lawyer Michael Code, who is now part of the Bagri defence team. Inderjit Reyat was called as a Crown witness this week in the conspiracy and murder trial of Bagri and Ripudaman Singh Malik.
The wedding has raised questions about the testimony Reyat gave to the Court earlier this week. The former auto mechanic from Duncan had said he knew nothing about the beliefs of the militant group Babbar Khalsa even though its founder asked him to build a bomb.
The court sought Friday to question Reyat as a hostile witness after two days of evasive answers during which Reyat claimed he didn't remember many of the details leading up to two June 23, 1985 bombings that killed 331.
He said at first he didn't know Parmar was a leader of the Babbar Khalsa, though he eventually conceded in court that Parmar was with the militant group. He admitted Parmar asked him to build a bomb, but said he failed in his attempts and only supplied materials to a mystery man from Toronto introduced to him by Parmar.
Reyat's daughter's new father-in-law told the Vancouver Sun he knew nothing of Reyat's testimony this week. "I have no clue what he was asked," Tejinder Kaloe said in a phone interview from Hamilton.
He said he was in British Columbia earlier this year when he met Reyat's daughter through a mutual friend and thought she would make a good match for his son.
"I was just collecting funds for the temple and just met the girl," he said. "It is just a coincidence. I had never met the family before," he said.
Satnam Kaur Reyat was in Ontario for the July wedding, but Kaloe said he never talked to her about her subpoena to testify in the Air India case in November.
He also confirmed that a son of Parmar's from British Columbia attended the marriage ceremony. Jaswinder Singh Parmar, who is married to one of Bagri's daughters, was in Ontario on business and went to the wedding, Kaloe said.