CANADA: Canadian police have arrested two people for the targeted killing of Ripudaman Singh Malik, a 75-year-old Sikh man who was acquitted in the tragic 1985 Air India Kanishka terrorist bombing case, local media reported.
Tanner Fox, 21, and Jose Lopez, 23, have been charged with first-degree murder, CBC news reported.
“We understand this is a high-profile international story. However, we urge not to speculate as to the motive as our homicide investigators will be following the evidence,” Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sergeant David Lee said at a press conference.
Lee stated that the CCTV footage shows that a white Honda CRV stopped near the place of the incident shortly before the shooting and waited for Malik.
Malik was shot and killed in Surrey, British Columbia on July 15. Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, a worker in British Columbia, were acquitted in 2005 of the attack on Air India Flight 182, which exploded over the Atlantic Ocean in 1985 in one of the deadliest commercial airliner bombings in history.
Ripudaman Singh Malik’s eldest son Jaspreet told reporters outside the family’s $6.8 million South Surrey home after the killing that his father had no safety concerns and was focused on his businesses and the volunteer work he did for his community.
“My dad never told us anything about him being threatened or anything like that,” he said. Jaspreet Malik was working in his law office when his wife called him with the news.