Bhopal gas tragedy: Victims to protest in Delhi Thursday

NEW DELHI - Around 200 victims and survivors of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy will hold a protest march here Thursday to press for their long pending demands of rehabilitation and medical care.

The protest was announced Tuesday to the media by four Bhopal based NGOs representing the survivors who were exposed to toxic methyl isocyanate in the gas leak.

The protesting organisations said that none of the assurances of rehabilitation given by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have been fulfilled.

“Despite promises of rehabilitation made by the prime minister in 2006, 20,000 people are still drinking poisoned water and 10,000 gas victims who were promised jobs are jobless,” Safreen Khan of NGO Children Against Dow-Carbide told reporters.

The government had “in-principle” agreed in 2006 to the setting up of an Empowered Commission on Bhopal to look into the matters of rehabilitation of the gas leak victims.

Rachna Dhingra from Bhopal Group for Information and Action, while referring to the Commission, said that “nothing has moved in favour of the Bhopalis”.

Rashida Bee of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karamchari Sangh said that local police had warned the organisers not to march in protest, but they were undeterred.

“If all means of non-violent and democratic protest are restricted, what does the government expect us to do,” she said. She added that the police had threatened that the protestors would not be allowed to end their march near the Jantar Mantar protest site.

Thousands of tonnes of methyl isocyanate (MIC) spewed out of the Union Carbide factory on the night of Dec 2-3, 1984, killing over 3,500 people instantly and maiming several thousands for life.