Vancouver: The Canadian Police had believed that the target of Sikh extremists in 1985 was the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and not the Air India even though its intelligence agency had tipped off that an Air India plane out of Montreal would be bombed.

Months before the Kanishka flight exploded off the Irish Coast in June 1985 killing all 329 people on board, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) missions in Canada was high and this was intended to include Air India, Canadian media reports said.

CSIS had also alerted the Canadian Police about its surveillance of the suspected mastermind, Talwinder Singh Parmar, on June 4, 1985.

Its agents had seen Parmar and another suspect Inderjit Singh go into the woods near Duncan and then heard what they believed wee gun firing note on the Air India investigation.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) did not follow up this information until after the June 23 bombing as they believed that the target of Sikh extremists at that time was Rajiv Gandhi and not Air India Aircraft, the reports said.

The RCMP interviewed Parmar as they were interested in finding out what he intended to do during Gandhi's visit to New York city, they stated in a 1992 report on the Air India case. They also wanted to dissuade extremists from any action against Gandhi during a trip to the United Nation (UN), the police said.

PTI