Bhopal Gas Tragedy which occurred on the night of December 2-3, 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India is the world's worst industrial catastrophe. At that time, UCIL was the Indian subsidiary of the U.S. company Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), which is now a subsidiary of Dow Chemical Company.
Around midnight on December 2–3, 1984, there was a leak of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas and other toxins from the plant, resulting in the exposure of over 500,000 people. Estimates vary on the death toll. The official immediate death toll was 2,259 and the government of Madhya Pradesh has confirmed a total of 3,787 deaths related to the gas release. Other government agencies estimate 15,000 deaths. Others estimate that 8,000 died within the first weeks and that another 8,000 have since died from gas-related diseases.Some 25 years after the gas leak, 390 tonnes of toxic chemicals abandoned at the UCIL plant continue to leak and pollute the groundwater in the region and affect thousands of Bhopal residents who depend on it,
Over two decades since the tragedy, certain civil and criminal cases remain pending in the United States District Court, Manhattan and the District Court of Bhopal, India, against Union Carbide with an Indian arrest warrant also pending against Warren Anderson, CEO of Union Carbide at the time of the disaster.
Greenpeace asserts that as the Union Carbide CEO, Anderson knew about a 1982 safety audit of the Bhopal plant, which identified 30 major hazards and that they were not fixed in Bhopal but were fixed at the company's identical plant in the US. In June 2010, seven ex-employees, including the former chairman of UCIL, were convicted in Bhopal of causing death by negligence and sentenced to two years imprisonment and a fine of about $2,000 each, the maximum punishment allowed by law. An eighth former employee was also convicted but had died before judgment was passed.
Even worse than the 40 tonnes of poisonous gas that descended onto Bhopal and the 25,000 deaths it caused, is the judgement that was passed earlier today, 26 years hence. Chief Judicial Magistrate Mohan P. Tiwari at Bhopal convicted 8 individuals and sentenced them to imprisonment of 2 years and released them on bail later the same afternoon.Union Carbide’s Warren Anderson, who is absconding on the files of the court, continues residing in the Hamptons in New York. Meanwhile, a non-bailable warrant issued in 1989 remains pending against Anderson, who fled India earlier in 1984 after posting bail of Rs. 25,000.
A former prime ministerial aide P C Alexander reportedly stated that Gandhi and then Madhya Pradesh chief minister Arjun Singh were directly in touch with each other over the escape of Anderson from the country barely days after the world's biggest industrial disaster in Bhopal Dec 2-3, 1984.
The Government of India as well as the CBI did everything they could to extradite Anderson from the US. Chief minister Arjun Singh had apparently not consulted the caretaker Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi before ordering the arrest of Anderson on December 7. It is alleged that After the arrest, Rajiv Gandhi's powerful aide and cousin, Arun Nehru, telephoned Arjun Singh and told him that US President Ronald Regan had called up the Indian PM and 'requested' him to release Anderson immediately. Now, Rajiv Gandhi was an Indian Airlines pilot, accustomed to taking only orders from air traffic control. The job of prime minister was thrust upon him because of his mother's assassination just one month before the gas disaster. He couldn't have resisted the top man in the White House.
In Simple words,The allegation is that the American government wanted to rescue Anderson and they had spoken to Rajiv Gandhi who instructed Arjun Singh to kindly do the needful and hence Anderson was sent to usa safely in a separate flight.So the Indian government was not bothered about punishing the accused Anderson who was responsible for the Bhopal tragedy,instead they gave him a safe passage to reach the usa.
The central government should clarify this so that the people can know exactly what happened and how Anderson went back to the usa.I suspect the congress government is trying to cover up the entire issue in order to save Rajiv Gandhi’s name.Now after 26 years our great prime minister manmohan singh is offering a relief package for the affected people. Lets leave the number of people who died in that tragic night,can we count how many people would have died in the past 25 years. I wonder who is going to receive the relief from the prime minister...
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