Bhopal tragedy survivors burn Chidambaram’s effigy
January 14th, 2012 - 5:53 pm ICT by IANS
Bhopal, Jan 14 (IANS) The survivors of the Bhopal gas tragedy Saturday burnt an effigy of Home Minister P. Chidambaram to protest the decision of a ministerial panel not to revise in the curative petition pending before the Supreme Court the figures of dead and injured in the disaster.
The leaders of survivors’ organisations alleged that Chidambaram has a history of being devoted to Union Carbide’s owner Dow Chemical and called for his removal from the post of chairman of the Group of Ministers (GoM) for Bhopal.
“The GoM’s decision not to present correct numbers of the people Union Carbide has killed and injured in Bhopal is a decision unilaterally imposed by Chidambaram on the entire group. This decision is against data from scientific studies by the government’s own Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)” said Rashida Bee, president of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmachari Sangh.
The survivors were expecting that the government will add to the figure in the ongoing curative petition in the Supreme Court, but the GOM’s refusal has angered them.
Presenting a copy of a letter written by Chidambaram to the prime minister’s office (PMO) in 2006, Nawab Khan of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha alleged: “Chidambaram had written to the prime minister to let Dow Chemical walk away from its liabilities in Bhopal. His latest attempt to downplay the damage caused by the American company shows how devoted he continues to be to the Dow Chemical company.”
“Chidambaram was the lawyer for Enron, the most corrupt American corporation and a board member of Vedanta, the British company responsible for ecological and human devastation. He should not have been included in the GoM on Bhopal, let alone be its chairman,” said Rachna Dhingra of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action.
On the night of Dec 2-3, 1984, tonnes of methyl isocyanate gas leaked from the Union Carbide’s pesticides plant in Bhopal killing several thousand people. ICMR had estimated that by 1997 over 15,000 people had succumbed in the tragedy but in court, the government only spoke of 5,295 deaths.
- Bhopal shuts down for gas tragedy affected - Oct 11, 2011
- Bhopal gas tragedy survivors call shutdown Oct 11 - Oct 08, 2011
- Update death toll in gas tragedy: Bhopal survivors - Oct 17, 2011
- Bhopal gas tragedy survivors sit-in to move to Delhi - Jan 20, 2012
- Not enough done for Bhopal tragedy victims: Activist - Jan 12, 2012
- Bhopal will remember its dead and dying - and how - Dec 01, 2010
- Cell sought to punish Bhopal disaster guilty - Jun 05, 2010
- Government toed Union Carbide's line on compensation: RTI - Oct 17, 2011
- Bhopal Gas tragedy: CPI-M demands Dow Chemicals to take liability - Jul 02, 2010
- Bhopal gas survivors to stop trains on 27th anniversary - Nov 25, 2011
- Bhopal survivors burn effigy of IOC president - Feb 19, 2012
- Bhopal gas victims protest to seek Obama's help - Nov 07, 2010
- Bhopal gas tragedy survivor, activist Irfan dies - Feb 18, 2011
- Bhopal gas survivors welcome Ethics Commissioner's resignation - Jan 26, 2012
- Bhopal gas survivors to sit on 'dharna' from Tuesday - Jan 02, 2012
Tags: bhopal gas tragedy, board member, correct numbers, dhingra, dow chemical, dow chemical company, effigy, home minister, human devastation, icmr, liabilities, medical research, methyl isocyanate, ministerial panel, p chidambaram, pesticides, pmo, stationery, tonnes, union carbide