“Not doing so would be betrayal of trust”: Activist calls on Centre to make US firm pay for Bhopal gas tragedy

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh) [India], June 25 (ANI): Even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi departed the US shores after his maiden State visit to the country, Rachna Dhingra, an activist working for the survivors of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, on Sunday called on the central government to explore legal steps to make Union Carbide and Dow Chemicals pay for damages to the progeny of the victims and survivors.

As has been widely documented, the tragedy unfolded after a gas leak at a Bhopal chemical plant run by Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Dow Chemicals Company in the US. Speaking to ANI on Sunday, the activist cited an international study which suggests that men, who were in their mothers’ wombs when the Bhopal gas tragedy unfolded in 1984, were eight times more prone to cancer.

Dhingra said the Bhopal Gas tragedy Victims’ Organisation launched a campaign on Sunday to make Dow Chemicals and Union Carbide pay for the damages to survivors and would even meet PM Modi and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in the national capital to press for this demand.

“We have launched a campaign today to press for justice for the survivors. We will also be visiting Delhi next week and try to set up meetings with Prime Minister Modi, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the Union Minister of Chemicals. We have proof that the Bhopal Gas tragedy had far-reaching effects on the next generation of the victims and survivors. The government should seek damages from Union Carbide and Dow Chemicals,” Dhingra told ANI.

She said the onus was on the Centre to demand compensation for the progeny of the victims and survivors, who suffered the debilitating after-effects of the gas leak.

“The responsibility is on the Union government to demand compensation from Union Carbide and Dow Chemicals for those continuing to suffer the far-reaching effects of the gas tragedy. Not doing so would amount to the betrayal of people who have set their hopes of justice on them,” she said.

The study, which was done by a team from the University of California San Diego (UCSD), US, revealed further that boys born in and around Bhopal in 1985 have lower education levels and many of them are unable to earn a living due to health issues.

The activist informed that data from the US study were used for the fourth edition of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) of 2015-16 and the 1999 socio-economic survey of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO).

Further quoting from the study, she said the gas tragedy affected people up to a distance of 100 kilometres from the Union Carbide factory site from where the poisonous gas leaked, adding that the leak wasn’t confined to a radius of 8 km as was thought earlier.

Dhingra also thanked the researchers for the study, which was published in the June 13 issue of BMJ Open, an open-access medical journal published by a company affiliated to the British Medical Association.

“We thank all the researchers, who have confirmed that the children of victims of the gas tragedy suffered far-reaching effects, which is something we have been talking about for the last 2 decades,” Dhingra said.