Ripudaman Singh Malik was killed while sitting in his car outside a business center in Surrey, according to The Toronto Star. Malik, 75, and Ajaib Singh Bagri were acquitted of mass murder and conspiracy charges in 2005 after being accused of a plane explosion near Ireland that killed 280 Canadians and a bombing at a Tokyo airport that killed two baggage handlers, reports newspaper. They were arrested in 2000 over the massacre and accused of targeting India’s national airline in retaliation for a deadly government raid on a sacred Sikh spiritual site. Malik and Bagri were released after key prosecution witnesses were found to be unreliable, the report said. It was reportedly unclear whether the “targeted” killing of Malik was related to the atrocities he had been linked to. A suspect’s car was found near the flames shortly after the 9:30 a.m. shooting, according to the agency. Ripudaman Singh Malik was found shot dead in his vehicle on Thursday. Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press/AP “The investigation is in the early stages and police are still looking for the suspect and a second vehicle that may have been used as a getaway vehicle,” the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was quoted as saying. A car wash worker who heard the ambush ran outside and found Malik injured, according to the Canadian Press. “There were three shots. A slap in the neck, that’s what. And I just took him out. He was alive,” the man said. Ripudaman Singh Malik acquitted of the 1985 bombing of an Air India flight. Lyle Stafford/REUTERS “It’s shocking,” longtime friend Asaf Gill told the newspaper. “He was acquitted for some reasons. Who else is going to take the law into their own hands?’ Malik, a multi-millionaire businessman, immigrated to Canada from India in 1972 and became an influential member of British Columbia’s Sikh separatist movement, according to The National Post. After working as a taxi driver, Malik founded a credit union and a private school for community members and is remembered for his teachings of faith, his son said on Facebook. It is unclear whether the attack is related to Malik’s previous actions. Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press/AP “The media will always refer to him as someone blamed for the Air India bombing. He was wrongly accused, wrote Jaspreet Singh Malik. “The media and the RCMP never seemed to accept the Court’s decision and I pray that today’s tragedy is not related.” Another suspect, Inderjit Singh Reyat, was reportedly convicted and spent 30 years in prison for helping to build the bombs in the terror attack. Alleged ringleader Talwinder Singh Parmar was killed by the police in 1992.
