page_title: Khalistan movement
section_title: Air India Flight 182
hierarchical_section_title: Khalistan movement / 1985 to present day / 1985 / Air India Flight 182
caption_attribution_description: English: A Boeing 747-200 (VT-EFO, Emperor Kanishka (कनिष्क)) landing at London Heathrow Airport Español: Boeing 747-200 de Air India (registro VT-EFO, bautizado «Emperador Kanishka» (कनिष्क)) aterrizando en el aeropuerto de Londres-Heathrow dos semanas antes de su pérdida Deutsch: Eine Boeing 747-200 (VT-EFO, Emperor Kanishka (कनिष्क)) zur Landung auf dem London Heathrow Airport
context_page_description: The Khalistan movement is a Sikh separatist movement seeking to create a homeland for Sikhs by establishing a sovereign state, called Khalistān, in the Punjab region. The proposed state would consist of land that currently forms Punjab, India and Punjab, Pakistan,
  However this has been refuted by many proponents of Khalistan as they seek to create a Sikh homeland in Indian Punjab, where they form a majority.
  Ever since the separatist movement gathered force in the 1980s, Pakistan has sided with the Sikhs, and the territorial ambitions of Khalistan have at times included Chandigarh, sections of the Indian Punjab, including whole North India and some parts of western states of India. Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan, according to Jagjit Singh Chohan, had proposed all out help to create Khalistan during his talks with Chohan following the conclusion of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.
  The Khalistan movement was established in the wake of the fall of the British Empire. In 1940, the first explicit call for Khalistan was made in a pamphlet titled "Khalistan".
context_section_description: Air India Flight 182 was an Air India flight operating on the Montréal-London-Delhi-Bombay route. On 23 June 1985, a Boeing 747 operating on the route was blown up by a bomb mid-air off the coast of Ireland. A total of 329 people aboard were killed,  268 Canadian citizens, 27 British citizens and 24 Indian citizens, including the flight crew. On the same day, an explosion due to a luggage bomb was linked to the terrorist operation and occurred at the Narita Airport in Tokyo, Japan, intended for Air India Flight 301, killing two baggage handlers. The entire event was inter-continental in scope, killing 331 people in total and affected five countries on different continents: Canada, the United Kingdom, India, Japan, and Ireland. 
  The main suspects in the bombing were members of a Sikh separatist group called the Babbar Khalsa, and other related groups who were at the time agitating for a separate Sikh state of Khalistan in Punjab, India. In September 2007, the Canadian Commission of Inquiry investigated reports, initially disclosed in the Indian investigative news magazine Tehelka, that a hitherto unnamed person, Lakhbir Singh Rode, had masterminded the explosions. However, in conclusion two separate Canadian inquiries officially determined that the mastermind behind the terrorist operation was in fact the Canadian, Talwinder Singh Parmar. 
  Several men were arrested and tried for the Air India bombing. Inderjit Singh Reyat, a Canadian national and member of the International Sikh Youth Federation who pleaded guilty in 2003 to manslaughter, would be the only person convicted in the case. He was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for assembling the bombs that exploded on board Air India Flight 182 and at Narita Airport.
caption: The aircraft involved, VT-EFO, seen on 10 June 1985, less than two weeks before the bombing of Air India Flight 182
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