Bhopal verdict puts focus on nuclear drive

Bhopal verdict puts focus on nuclear drive

BANGALORE - A little over 25 years after Union Carbide Corporation's pesticide plant in Bhopal spewed 40 tons of toxic gas into the air, killing thousands of people, a sense of justice or closure remains elusive to the victims, although a court on Monday proclaimed a guilty verdict on eight of the accused over the incident.

All Indians, those declared guilty by the court were at the time of the disaster senior employees of UCC's India subsidiary, Union Carbide India Ltd (UCIL). Among them is UCIL's then non-executive chairman, Keshub Mahindra. Eighty-five-year old Mahindra is today chairman of Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd, a major automobile and tractor manufacturer. One of the eight declared guilty passed away some years ago.

Conspicuous by its absence in the list of guilty was the name of UCC's then-chief executive officer, Warren Anderson. Anderson figured in the initial list of the accused and he was arrested a few days after the disaster, but then released on bail, which he jumped and fled, never to return to face trial. Activists claim his exit was facilitated by the Indian and US governments. He remains a fugitive from the law and is known to be living in Florida in the US.
The leak of methyl isocyanate gas on December 3, 1984, is the world's worst industrial disaster. Its impact is still unfolding.

While Indian government figures put the number of deaths in the first three days at 3,500, the state-run Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) pegged the figure at between 8,000 and 10,000 for this period. Around 500,000 people were exposed to the toxic fumes. In the years since, about 25,000 people are believed to have died due to related complications and many times that number have suffered debilitating physical, mental and neurological problems. Hundreds of thousands continue to suffer from the lethal impacts of contaminated water and soil.

While Union Carbide representatives blamed the leak on sabotage, it is widely believed that the corporation's cost-cutting measures effectively disabled safety procedures essential to prevent or alert employees of gas leaks. That its pesticide production process posed a dire threat to the people of Bhopal was known long before the night of the disaster. Between 1981 and 1984, there were three instances when smaller leaks killed or hospitalized workers. Yet Union Carbide did not act to prevent the disaster. Read More