On the 32nd anniversary of the Bhopal gas tragedy, various gas victims’ organisations would burn the US flag along with the logos of the ‘Dow Chemical’ and ‘DuPont’ corporations.
Several gas victims’ organizations jointly alleged the factory abandoned by the corporation is still killing and maiming people due to poisoning of groundwater from reckless dumping of toxic waste during its 14 years of operation prior to the disaster.
While talking to the media persons here on Wednesday, President of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangh, Rashida Bee said, "The Dow Chemical Company that took over Union Carbide in 2001 is responsible for cleaning up the contamination of soil and ground water in more than 50 square kilometers around the factory. In the last two years Dow Chemical has ignored four judicial notices asking its authorized representative to appear before the Bhopal district court. And now it is merging with another American multinational, DuPont, to further evade the civil, criminal and environmental liabilities of Bhopal."
Nawab Khan of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha, said, “The most glaring instance of the central government's neglect of the victims of Bhopal is in the sorry state of the two institutions it runs, the Bhopal Memorial hospital and NIREH, the research centre that has not completed a single research project in last six years.”
Rachna Dhingra of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action said that “the Madhya Pradesh government has not implemented a single recommendation of the Monitoring Committee set up by the Supreme Court to ensure adequate medical care and rehabilitation of the victims and their children."
Dhingra further said, "Since its inception, the dedicated government department of relief and rehabilitation victims has been little else but a milch cow for the officials. It is almost three years since submitted documentary evidence of corruption in payment of 18 crores on economic rehabilitation by the department but no action was taken."