Canada's federal police took no action despite a clear warning from Air-India to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on June 3, 1985 that Sikh extremists planned to target India's national carrier with suitcase bombs or suicide squads.
This information was reportedly revealed on Monday at the public inquiry into the Kanishka bombing that resumed this week in Ottawa.
Witnesses -- including Vancouver police officers serving at the time -- have started appearing and boxes full of classified documents are being released.
A front-page report in the National Post quotes from an Air-India telex message: ' assessment of threat received from intelligence agencies reveal the likelihood of sabotage attempts being undertaken by Sikh extremists by placing time delay devices in the aircraft registered baggage.
'It is also learnt that Sikh extremists are planning to set up suicide squads who may attempt to blow up an aircraft by smuggling in of explosives in the registered or (carry-on) baggage or any other means,' the quoted message adds.
The only action the RCMP reportedly took was to ask the Canadian Security Intelligence Service for a new threat assessment on the airline.
It also reportedly 'neglected to hand over the critical information provided by Air-India.'
The response from the CSIS was: 'assessment indicating there was no specific threat against Air-India.'
Why did the RCMP not pass on the Air-India warning to the CSIS? The only explanation Air-India Public Inquiry Commission lawyer Anil Kapoor says he received was 'oversight.'
Image: Lawyer Anil Kapoor
'Oversight?' Inquiry Commissioner Justice John Major asked. 'Oversight is not filling your dog's dish with water!
'It is just surprising that that would be the explanation -- oversight -- for something as dire as that,' Justice Major added.
A snubbed Air-India took the initiative of hiring Burns Security at Toronto's International Airport, reportedly for greater vigilance in response to the warnings.
And despite that, the RCMP officer in charge of airport security said in a June 5 telex to his bosses: 'I don't feel there is a need for extra security by this force.'
Thanks to this 'oversight' and inaction, 329 innocent men, women and children died in the worst act of terrorism before 9/11.
Former Vancouver police constable Rick Crook testified on Monday, when the public inquiry resumed after months of delay, how he was told by one Harnail Singh Grewal about a plot to blow up an Air-India aircraft as early as October 1984.
A man from Quebec also said he was offered $200,000 to put a bomb on an Air-India flight leaving Montreal. His warning to the RCMP was also not taken seriously.
One officer even laughed at the warning, this witness, who testified from behind a white sheet, told the commission.
The inquiry resumes on Wednesday with the likelihood of more explosive revelations.
