A witness told CBC he heard three gunshots and pulled Malik from his red Tesla bleeding from a neck wound. The witness, who asked not to be named, said police were the first to arrive at the scene. A second witness from a nearby business in the 8200-block of 128th Street also identified Malik as the victim. Surrey RCMP said a man who was shot at that location around 9:30 a.m. PT succumbed to his injuries at the scene. They say it appears to be a targeted shooting and are not releasing the victim’s name. A suspicious vehicle was located in the 12200-block of 82nd Avenue that was engulfed in flames, according to police. Surrey Police and RCMP officers are pictured at the scene of a fatal shooting in Surrey, British Columbia on Thursday, July 14, 2022. (Ben Nelms/CBC) Malik, who was in his 70s, had a business near where he was killed. Malik and co-accused Ajaib Singh Bagri were acquitted in 2005 of mass murder and conspiracy charges related to twin bombings in 1985 that killed 331 people, mostly from the Toronto and Vancouver areas. Of those killed, 329 were aboard Air India Flight 182 when it exploded in mid-air over the Atlantic Ocean on June 23, 1985. Another bomb intended for a separate flight exploded at a Tokyo airport, killing two baggage handlers. The killings amounted to the worst mass killing in Canadian history. Among the dead were 280 Canadians and 86 children. Reactions to Malik’s death have been mixed. “We have lost a hero of the Sikh community,” said longtime friend Ragibtir Bhinder, speaking at the scene of the shooting. “We would like this man to live a hundred years. He hurts us.” Former British Columbia premier Ujjal Dosanjh, a former acquaintance of Malik, said he was a controversial figure. “One of the other complicating factors is that he made a recent visit to India where he wrote a letter of support [Prime Minister] Modi and his policies and I think that might have resonated and impacted the community,” said Dosanjh. Malik, a successful businessman with considerable influence among Sikh Canadians, sued after his acquittal in an attempt to get back $9.2 million in legal fees. He claimed the Crown knew the case was substandard but continued with the case regardless of public pressure. A BC Supreme Court judge dismissed Malik’s financial claim in July 2012. In recent years, Malik served as president at Khalsa School and managed two of the private school’s campuses in Surrey and Vancouver. He was also president of Vancouver-based Khalsa Credit Union (KCU), which has more than 16,000 members. Only one man was convicted in connection with the 1985 bombings. Inderjit Singh Reyat served 30 years in prison for lying during two trials, including Malik’s, and for helping build the bombs at his home in Duncan, B.C. . Crown attorneys claimed the bombing was a terrorist attack against state-owned Air India, an act of revenge by Sikh extremists based in BC. against the Indian government for ordering the army to attack Sikhism’s holiest shrine, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, in June 1984. Malik, then 58, and Bagri, then 55, were acquitted after a highly publicized trial that lasted two years. In the end, Judge Ian Josephson found the Crown’s key witnesses, who testified they overheard the two defendants confessing, to be biased and unreliable. Ripudaman Singh Malik, in gray, smiles as he leaves BC Supreme Court in Vancouver in 2005 after being acquitted of the Air India bombing in 1985. Malik and his co-accused were released after a judge ruled their testimony was not trustworthy. (Lyle Stafford/REUTERS) “These hundreds of men, women and children were completely innocent victims of a diabolical act of terrorism unprecedented until recently in the history of aviation,” the March 16, 2005 ruling said. something less than the required standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” Air India’s national inquiry later concluded that Talwinder Singh Parmar was the mastermind behind the deadly mid-air bombing. Parmar, 48, was shot and killed by police in India in 1992. Another suspect, Hardial Singh Johal, died in November 2002.
