Tara Singh Hayer, a 62-year-old Indo-Canadian male, was assassinated at his home in Surrey, British Columbia, on November 18, 1998. The documented date of his killing was November 18 rather than October 1. Hayer, the publisher of the Indo-Canadian Times, had become one of Canada’s most prominent Punjabi-language journalists and an outspoken critic of extremist violence. That position had brought years of threats and attacks against him.
On the night he was killed, an assailant or assailants entered his garage and attacked him as he was getting out of his vehicle, shooting and stabbing him.
Hayer’s murder came at the end of a long period in which he had publicly challenged violent elements of the Sikh separatist movement and reported on individuals and organizations he believed were connected to terrorism. His reporting was particularly significant because of the investigation into the June 1985 bombing of Air India Flight 182, which killed 329 people. Hayer eventually became an important potential witness in that investigation.
In 1995, Hayer provided the RCMP with an affidavit describing a conversation he said he had overheard years earlier in London, England, between newspaper publisher Tarsem Singh Purewal and Ajaib Singh Bagri. Hayer said Bagri spoke about the Air India bombing and described circumstances surrounding the placement and intended timing of the bomb. Purewal, who might have been able to address the conversation, had already been shot to death outside his newspaper office in Southall, London, in January 1995. Hayer’s account therefore took on particular importance to Canadian investigators.
The danger surrounding Hayer was not new. On August 22, 1988, Harkirat Singh Bagga shot him three times inside the offices of the Indo-Canadian Times. Hayer survived but was left paraplegic and used a wheelchair afterward. Bagga was arrested and ultimately pleaded guilty to attempted murder, receiving a ten-year prison sentence. Investigators later examined whether others had been involved in planning that attack. Ajaib Singh Bagri was eventually charged in connection with the 1988 plot, but the charge did not proceed to a conviction and was later stayed after a key witness no longer wanted to testify.
Threats continued during the years after the shooting. In 1998, information reached police about a purported hit list that reportedly included Hayer. The RCMP installed surveillance equipment around his residence, but the system experienced technical problems. When Hayer returned home on November 18 and was attacked in his garage, the surveillance equipment failed to provide usable images of the killer. The later Air India public inquiry examined the protection given to Hayer and concluded that there had been serious shortcomings in the way the threats against him and the surveillance system were handled.
The murder investigation eventually produced allegations identifying possible participants, but those allegations never resulted in a prosecution for Hayer’s killing. During an unrelated gangland murder case, Hardip Singh Uppal alleged that Ravinder “Robbie” Soomel had admitted involvement in Hayer’s assassination. According to the account presented in court, Soomel said he and Daljit Singh “Umboo” Basran had been promised $50,000 by Babbar Khalsa to carry out the killing. The allegation described Soomel as the getaway driver and Basran as the person who carried out the attack. These claims were significant investigative leads, but neither man was convicted of Hayer’s murder, and Soomel was never charged in the case.
Soomel was later convicted of an unrelated gangland murder and received a life sentence. Basran disappeared in 2006 and was believed by investigators and associates to have met with foul play. The RCMP continued trying to develop evidence in Hayer’s case, particularly after the 2005 acquittals of Bagri and Ripudaman Singh Malik on charges arising from the Air India bombing. Police launched a renewed investigation known as Project Expedio and used elaborate undercover operations in an effort to obtain information about Hayer’s assassination. Those operations generated information and related criminal cases, but they did not produce a murder charge in Hayer’s death.
Hayer’s killing also had consequences for the Air India prosecution. His death eliminated the possibility of having him personally testify about the conversation he said he had overheard involving Bagri. The subsequent public inquiry into the Air India bombing examined Hayer’s treatment as a potential witness and the repeated threats against him, describing his case as a particularly serious example of failures in witness protection. Despite years of investigation, investigative leads involving organized crime figures, and allegations that his assassination had been financed by Babbar Khalsa, no one has been prosecuted or convicted for the November 18, 1998 murder of Tara Singh Hayer. The killing remains unsolved.
