One of the two men acquitted this week of Canada's largest mass murder could still face legal action in connection with the Air India case.

The family of slain Indo-Canadian journalist Tara Singh Hayer hopes police will re-lay an attempted murder charge against Ajaib Singh Bagri that was stayed 14 months ago.

Agraib Singh Bagri with his daughter after his acquittal Wednesday. (CP Photo)
Agraib Singh Bagri with his daughter after his acquittal Wednesday. (CP Photo)

At the time, the Sikh activist and co-accused Ripudaman Singh Malik were being tried on murder and conspiracy charges in connection with the 1985 downing of Air India Flight 182, which killed 329 people, and a second bomb that killed two baggage handlers in Japan.

A judge in British Columbia acquitted Bagri and Malik of those charges on Wednesday.

If he had not been murdered in 1998, Hayer might have been one of the key witnesses against Bagri.

Soon after Air India Flight 182 blew up over the north Atlantic on June 23, 1985, Hayer linked the Kamloops sawmill worker to the explosion in stories he published in his newspaper, the Indo-Canadian Times.

Some believe that's why Hayer was shot in 1988, which left him paralyzed.

Bagri was eventually charged with attempted murder in connection with the attack.

Continuing to work as a journalist from a wheelchair, Hayer refused to be silenced in his criticisms of hardline Sikh nationalists operating in Canada.

In October 1995, Hayer told police that he had overhead Bagri discussing how he co-ordinated the effort to put the suitcase bomb on the plane.

Three years later, before the Air India case went to trial, a gunman killed Hayer in his garage in Surrey, B.C.

No one has ever been charged in the murder.

Hayer's son hopes charges will come soon.

"If I think we allow this case to fall off, then basically the criminal element wins," said David Hayer, who is now a member of British Columbia's legislature.

"Not just the people who assassinated him, but the people who raised the money, who hired those people – it's very important we get to those people. Until we get rid of them, put them in jail, the violence is not going to stop. The terrorists aren't going to stop."

The RCMP could use new evidence to propel their investigation, Hayer's family points out.

A week after the Crown stayed the attempted murder charge against Bagri, a man on trial in a gang murder testified that he knew who killed Hayer and who paid for it.

Hardeep Uppal told the court the $50,000 contract hit was ordered by the Babbar Khalsa. The Sikh terrorist group was founded by Bagri and Talwinder Parmar.

Parmar, who is suspected to have been the mastermind behind the Air India bombings, was killed in a shootout with police in India in 1992.

RCMP spokesman Sgt. John Ward admits the Hayer case has not been an easy one to crack, because of fear and suspicion within British Columbia's Sikh community.

"This is an ongoing police investigation," he said after this week's Air India acquittal. "We continue to investigate that matter."

Rupinder Hayer Baines, who carries on the family tradition by continuing to put out her father's newspaper, said she's convinced the Air India link led to her father's death.

"My father was a very principled person," she said.

"Even if he'd known he was going to be killed, he would have gone in to testify ... I believe the Air India case had quite a bit to do with my dad's shooting."