Union Carbide victims to protest Obama visit

Bhopal: Bhopal gas tragedy survivors who have been fighting for justice for the last 26 years plan to bring their plight to the notice of US President Barack Obama, who will visit India from Saturday to Tuesday, a representative of the victims said yesterday.

For this, they will stage a sit-in at Jantar Mantar in Delhi on Monday when Obama is in the capital.

Tonnes of poisonous methyl-iso-cyanate gas spewed out of the now-shut pesticide plant of Union Carbide India located in a congested part of Bhopal overnight on December 2 to 3 in 1984, killing over 3,000.

In the years that followed, people exposed to the gas kept dying or suffered from life-long ailments and complications. The deaths in the world's worst industrial disaster is believed to be about 25,000.

At least five organisations working for the gas tragedy victims held a press conference in Bhopal yesterday.

Accountability

"We are going to ask Obama to use his presidential powers to make US corporations Union Carbide and Dow Chemical [which took over Union Carbide] answerable to Indian courts," said Rashida Bee, president of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangh.

A Bhopal court held seven officials of the Union Carbide India plant and the company itself guilty of criminal negligence and causing the industrial disaster. But the guilty were bailed out within minutes of the verdict.