[7] In 1988, Hayer wrote various editorials in his newspaper about how, while visiting a friend in 1985 in London, England, months after the Air India bombing, he overheard a conversation taking place in the offices of the Punjabi-language newspaper Des Pardes in which accused bomber Ajaib Singh Bagri described to Tarsem Singh Purewal, the editor of Des Pardes, how the bomb was smuggled onto Flight 182.

He followed up with more specificity in the August edition: "In 1985 in England, Bagri was talking noisily about his involvement in the blowing up of the Air India airplane.

[9] He was shot in his newspaper office by Harkirat Singh Bagga, a youth who later pleaded guilty to attempted murder.

On October 15, 1995, Hayer swore an affidavit to the RCMP of the overheard conversation, which was made public (but not used as evidence).

According to Hayer's account:[8]Bagri stayed talking to Purewal for about 1 hour during which time the subject of the Air India Flight 182 bombing came up.

On November 18, 1998, Hayer (aged 62) was shot to death as he arrived home in Guildford, Surrey, from his office.

I am not capable of defending myself as easily as I used to when I could walk.Smith responded five days later:[3]I am concerned that you have not brought these matters to our attention previously, given that there seems to be an ongoing series of these incidents.

If you fear for your life, and you feel you are in immediate danger, you should be contacting our complaints line.Accordingly, in her book Loss of Faith, Vancouver Sun reporter Kim Bolan suggests that Hayer's murder was preventable.

Bolan argues that the RCMP ignored or bungled numerous clues that suggested the 1988 attempt on his life was part of a larger conspiracy.

Bolan also argues that the RCMP's attempts to penetrate into radical Sikh organizations brought the police "up against powerful people with connections to the highest political levels in Canada."

Writing in the National Post, Jonathan Kay noted that in December 1998, just a month after Hayer’s funeral, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien appeared at a fundraising dinner attended by Ripudaman Singh Malik and various other Flight 182 suspects.

Major concluded his report with the following:[2][T]ragically, the murder of Tara Singh Hayer, while he was supposedly under the watch of the RCMP, not only snuffed out the life of a courageous opponent of terrorism, but permanently foreclosed the possibility of his assistance in bringing the perpetrators of the bombing of Flight 182 to justice.Following Hayer's assassination, the investigation into his 1988 attempted murder was reopened and new evidence gathered.

[3] The Committee to Protect Journalists claims to have urged then-Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien to ensure the aggressive investigation into Hayer's murder, as well as having written to then-Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee asking him to cooperate fully with the investigation.

The second of these operations used an undercover cop posing as a South-American drug lord to target a suspect in the bomb plot named Jean Gaetan Gingras.

Gingras admitted to having arranged for a device to be placed at Hayer’s office in January 1986 at the request of a Babbar Khalsa member in Montreal.

[3] In 2018, retired RCMP deputy commissioner Gary Bass said that Expedio came close to laying charges in the Hayer murder.

In 1992, Hayer was honored with the Commemorative Medal for the 125th Anniversary of Canada and a Certificate of Appreciation from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

Each year, the award is given to a Canadian journalist who, through his or her work, has made an important contribution to reinforcing and promoting the principle of freedom of the press in Canada or elsewhere.