Bhopal campaigners condemn 'insulting' sentences over disaster
Campaign groups representing survivors of the Bhopal disaster expressed outrage today at the "insulting" sentences given to seven men for their roles in the tragedy.
The accused, several of them now in their 70s, were convicted of criminal negligence and sentenced to two years in prison but bailed pending an appeal.
The convictions are the only ones so far in a case that was opened the day after the tragedy, which happened 26 years ago.
Up to 25,000 people are thought to have died after being exposed to clouds of lethal gas that escaped from a chemical plant run by the US company Union Carbide on 2 and 3 December 1984.
Half a million are estimated to have been harmed in some way in what remains one of the worst industrial accidents in the world.
"
There is a sense of betrayal, of major outrage. This is not merely too little too late, but it is also a slap in the face of all those who were hoping for some kind of salve on their wounds," said Nitiyanand Jayaraman, of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal.
Hundreds of protesters, many waving placards saying "hang the guilty" and "traitors of the nation", tried to force their way into the court complex but were stopped by police.
Ram Prasad, a 75-year-old resident of the area, said the sentence was not enough. "I lost my son, younger brother and my father and I still have nightmares," he told reporters.
The prosecution, one of India's longest-running, was brought by the national Central Bureau of Investigation (CB). More serious charges which could have meant sentences of up to 10 years were controversially downgraded in 1996.
Most of those in the dock were operational managers at the plant. They included the then chairman of the Indian subsidiary of Union Carbide, the industrialist Keshub Mahindra.
Those convicted were also ordered to pay fines of 100,000 rupees (£1,400) each. The survivors' groups have criticised the prosecution, which involved around 3,000 documents and 170 witnesses, as "sloppy", and attacked the level of the fines.
"
This is just pocket change to some of them. It is what they make in a month. The fine is an insult," Jayaraman said.
The Bophal plant was built in 1969 on wasteland outside the then limits of the city in order to produce pesticide for use in India's green revolution.
A series of investigations revealed how poor design and maintenance, as well inadequately trained and ill-equipped staff, contributed to the disaster, which happened when water was allowed to enter a tank of volatile methyl isocyanate, triggering a chemical reaction.
The toxic gas produced then flowed out into the slum areas that had grown up around the plant.
The Bhopal disaster has deep resonance in a country where the interests of poor or marginalised communities are regularly sacrificed in the name of development, and where enforcement of safety regulations is haphazard at best. Many Indians are deeply suspicious of foreign companies looking to invest.
A separate action is still pending against Union Carbide and its then chairman, Warren Anderson. Anderson, who lives in the US, has refused to return to India to face charges against him.
Dow Chemicals, which bought the company, says an agreement with the Indian government under which it paid $470m (£323m) in compensation resolved all outstanding legal issues.
A spokesman for Union Carbide said that as "the Bhopal plant was detail designed, owned, operated and managed on a day-to-day basis by Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) and its employees
all the appropriate people
have appeared to face charges".
Although a previous attempt to extradite Anderson failed, Rachna Dhingra, of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action, said efforts to secure a trial of the former chairman would continue.
An appeal against the decision to downgrade charges to criminal negligence is also being planned.
"
These men have been convicted of the equivalent offence of causing a road traffic accident. The government of India has shown it cares more about the corporations than the people. But there is still hope yet we will keep the pressure on," Dhingra said.
