What Rajiv Gandhi told Canada PM after A-I blast

In a phone call just after the bombing of the Air India plane in 1985, then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had asked his Canadian counterpart why all the baggage on the flight was not removed and rechecked in Montreal when three pieces were found to be suspicious.

Gandhi had suggested to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney that Canada had breached international procedures by not re-screening the luggage on Flight 182.

Details of the emotionally-charged exchange were revealed on Wednesday in declassified government documents released at the judicial inquiry probing the June 23, 1985 bombing that killed 329 and a blast the same day at Tokyo's Narita Airport that killed two.

A June 27 briefing document about the call says: 'Overall impression was that Gandhi was highly excited, perturbed and concerned, but highly appreciative of the call.'  

'After Candian PM related his sympathies and condolences, Gandhi said he understood three suitcases had been pulled from Air India flight in Montreal and his understanding was that when such a thing happened, it was standard (international) practise that all suitcases would be searched, but this had not been done in this case,' the document says.

'Our PM did not comment directly on this but went on to say that in response to Indian requests, we had made every effort to ensure safety of Indian diplomatic personnel and premises in Canada. We would redouble our protective efforts and prosecute to the full extent of the law anyone involved in illegal action,' National Post reported, quoting the documents.

The briefing note says Gandhi had already heard of the Narita bombing as well and the two prime ministers agreed it looked like there was a sinister connection. The fact that Mulroney first called Gandhi to express condolences on the loss of life on the plane when most of the passengers were Canadians has long been criticised.

But the intimate details of the conversation between the two former prime ministers sheds much more light on the response to what at the time was an unprecedented act of terrorism.

The briefing says that while Gandhi, a trained commercial pilot, was not directly questioning Canadian security measures before the bombing, 'it is clear this question is implied.'

The document says Mulroney asked staff to investigate Gandhi's concerns about the baggage.

'Mulroney has asked Canadian authorities for a full report and we will relay that to Indian authorities,' says the memo, which was signed by an Ottawa official with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

Another memo released at the inquiry describes a meeting on June 25, 1985 between Bartleman's minister, Joe Clark, and S J S Chhatwal, then Indian High Commissioner in Canada, about the bombing.

At the meeting, Clark said 'he had for some time been very concerned about some activities within the Indian ethnic community in Canada involving extremist elements,' the document says.

'Clark said that he had personally talked with the president of India about this issue at the time of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's funeral and had stressed the importance of counteracting extremism.'

The declassified memos, briefing notes and documents from both CSIS and the RCMP show that massive amounts of intelligence had been gathered for years before the bombings about plot mastermind Talwinder Singh Parmar and Babbar Khalsa, the terrorist group he founded in 1978.

'On date, 1984/04/07, at the height of the conflict in Punjab, the Babbar Khalsa threatened to kidnap or kill the Indian Consul General in Vancouver,' a June 29, 1985, CSIS document says.

'This telephone threat was also directed at members of the consul's family. In 1981 and again in 1984, the Babbar Khalsa penned its name to threatening letters to the prime minister and other high officials in India. These letters were postmarked, Vancouver,' the documents said.          

Startling revelations have come out this week at the inquiry headed by retired Supreme Court of Canada Justice John Major about repeated warnings made to law enforcement agencies about bomb plots against Air India.

Equally startling have been repeated examples of warnings not being shared between agencies or different levels of government.

No witnesses testified on Wednesday, but Ontario Lieutenant Governor James Bartleman will take the stand when the inquiry resumes on Friday. At the time of the bombing, he was in charge of the intelligence analysis and security branch of the Department of External Affairs.