For forty years, India maintained that the bomb that destroyed Air India Flight 182 on June 23, 1985, killing all 329 people on board, was the work of Khalistani terrorists operating out of Canada. For forty years, Ottawa avoided saying so publicly. That silence ended on Wednesday, when the Canadian Security Intelligence Service explicitly attributed the deadliest terrorist attack in Canadian history to "Canada-based Khalistani extremists."

In a Facebook post commemorating the tragedy, CSIS stated: "On June 23, 1985, a bomb planted by Canada-based Khalistani extremists destroyed the aircraft, killing everyone on board, most of them Canadians. It remains the deadliest terrorist attack in Canada's history and a defining moment for our national security community."

The statement, unambiguous in a way that decades of Canadian government language had never been, represents a significant moment in the long and fraught relationship between Ottawa and New Delhi over the Khalistan issue.

What happened on June 23, 1985

Air India Flight 182, a Boeing 747 nicknamed Emperor Kanishka, was en route from Toronto to Mumbai when a bomb concealed in the luggage compartment tore it apart over the Atlantic Ocean. Members of the banned Khalistani group Babbar Khalsa were responsible for planting the device. Every person on board was killed. The attack remained the world's deadliest act of aviation terrorism until September 11, 2001. Canada formally designated June 23 as the National Day of Remembrance for Victims of Terrorism in 2005.

Why it took four decades to say this

The delay in naming the Khalistani movement was not simply political caution; it reflected a catastrophic institutional failure that undermined the criminal investigation from the outset.

A 2010 public inquiry led by former Supreme Court Justice John Major concluded that a "cascading series of errors" by national agencies had fatally damaged the case. The most damning failure was the destruction of evidence. CSIS had been actively monitoring Babbar Khalsa leader Talwinder Singh Parmar, but the agency destroyed hundreds of hours of critical wiretap recordings, evidence that could have secured early convictions.

A bitter turf war between CSIS and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police paralysed the investigation further. Compounding the intelligence failures was what the inquiry described as institutional apathy. Despite 268 of the 329 victims being Canadian citizens, the attack was widely treated by politicians and the public as a distant "Indian" problem, a bias that stripped the case of political urgency for years.

Witness intimidation, including the targeted murders of key witnesses, hampered investigators for decades. When the 2005 criminal trial collapsed with the acquittal of the main suspects due to insufficient evidence, public pressure finally forced Ottawa to launch a full inquiry. Prime Minister Stephen Harper formally apologised for Canada's institutional failings in 2010, but official language remained carefully hedged. Government documents continued to use vague terms like "insurgents" or "unnamed extremists" rather than naming the Khalistani movement. It took sixteen more years for that ambiguity to be abandoned.

A shift already underway

CSIS's public statement on Wednesday did not emerge in isolation. In its annual report published in March 2025, the agency had for the first time flagged "Canada-based Khalistani extremist (CBKE) groups" as a national security threat, warning that their "ongoing involvement in violent extremist activities continues to pose a national security threat to Canada and to Canadian interests."

More pointedly, the report acknowledged that these groups were actively exploiting Canadian institutions. "Some CBKEs are well-connected to Canadian citizens who leverage Canadian institutions to promote their violent extremist agenda and collect funds from unsuspecting community members that are then diverted toward violent activities," it stated.

Decades of tension with India

The Khalistani movement faded within India after a bloody insurgency, but many of its adherents relocated to Canada, where a large Sikh diaspora and liberal free speech protections allowed them to operate with considerable freedom. India repeatedly accused Canada of sheltering individuals sponsoring violence, murder, human trafficking and organised crime in India's name, accusations that Ottawa consistently deflected.

Relations reached a breaking point under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who stood before the Canadian Parliament to accuse Indian intelligence agency RAW of orchestrating the assassination of Khalistani activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil, triggering an unprecedented diplomatic standoff between the two countries.

Published on: Jun 26, 2026 8:22 AM IST