Belated and scanty verdict

The verdict of a local court on Bhopal Gas Tragedy after 26 years is belated
and scanty. Justice delayed is justice denied. That is absolutely true of victims .
There has also been deliberate indifference of the government of India to
pursue the case strongly against Chairman Warren Anderson of Union Carbide.
CBI probe has proved to be a farce. With the growing need of US help in a
number of areas, the successive Indian governments connived with the cause of
victims. They miserably failed to put any pressure on US to ensure adequate
compensation and justice to the victims of Bhopal Gas tragedy. Union Cabide Plant at Bhopal was is the offshoot of the US. It was its
pesticide producing induatrial unit in India. Warren Anderson was its
Chairman. As Bhopal Gas tragedy is the worst industrial disaster or accident due to the
total lack of safety measures by the Union Carbide India Limited that killed
more than 15000 persons and made fully handicapped physical lakhs of
persons on the night of 2-3 December, 1984. The responsibility must be fixed why the leak of poisonous Methyl Isocynate
gas from Union Carbide India Limited Bhopal plant occurred and whose
carelessness caused the world’s worst industrial disaster. The death of more
than 15000 persons in sleep presents a horrendous sight before the eyes. The law court should have given deterrent punishment to the officials
concerned and Union Carbide Chairman Warren Anderson so that no industrial
disaster of such magnitude could dare repeated in future anywhere in the world. The local court has held eight people of Union Carbide India Limited guilty
but its boss Warren Anderson was left free. He was arrested and bailed out
immediately long back. The government of India has also shown favour towards the US in Bhopal Gas
tragedy case to keep it in good humour. Anderson was easily allowed to leave
India and he sold his Union Carbide to Dow Chemicals. A quarter century after the world’s worst industrial disaster that killed over
15,000 people, the local court convicted former Union Carbide India
Chairman Keshub Mahindra and seven others in the case and awarded them a
maximum of two years imprisonment. However, 89-year-old Warren Anderson, the then Chairman of Union Carbide
Corporation of USA, who lives in the United States, appeared to have gone scot
free for the present as he is still an absconder and did not subject himself to
trial.The US has already rejected taking any action against the Union Carbide
company for the world’s worst industrial disaster but hoped this issue would
not come in the way of its relations with India. Though the government of
India has pledged to pursue the case strongly against Anderson, it would need
to muster courage to ask the US to punish him adequately.