By TCN News
New Delhi: The CPI(ML) (Liberation) led by its General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya today held a protest at Parliament Street against the verdict in the Bhopal Gas Disaster case. Protestors raised slogans demanding “Extradite Union Carbide CEO Warren Anderson”, “No Clean Chit to Corporate Criminals”, “Shame on Congress and UPA Govt for Protecting Corporate Killers” and “Withdraw Civil Nuclear Liability Bill.”
Addressing the protest meeting, Dipankar Bhattacharya said, “The verdict in the Bhopal Gas Disaster case is a cruel mockery of justice – an insult to the victims of one of the world’s worst industrial disasters and an assurance to MNCs they will enjoy total impunity in India even when they poison thousands of Indian lives. The verdict is a culmination of a long and shameful process whereby governments at the Centre and MP, headed by Congress and BJP, have worked to protect the guilty CEOs and betray the people of Bhopal. The Congress today is claiming to seek Warren Anderson’s extradition; but in 1984, it was a Congress Government in MP which ordered Warren Anderson’s release on bail and helped him to travel to Delhi on the CM’s plane where he had even met the then President of India before leaving the country!”
Bhattacharya said that the Congress-led UPA Government is now paving the way for more Bhopals by pushing the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill which will free suppliers of nuclear reactors from liability in case of disasters. “The US is refusing to extradite Anderson and is urging India to accept the Court’s virtual clean chit for the Union Carbide CEOs as final. But in the case of the oil spill by British Petroleum off the Louisiana coast of USA that claimed 11 lives recently, the Obama Administration has expressed determination to pursue criminal charges against British Petroleum! Protecting US corporations from civil and criminal liabilities for Indian lives lost, and pursuing criminal charges against corporations responsible for American lives lost – the shameful US double standards are all too apparent!”
CPI(ML) State Secretary Sanjay Sharma said, “The soft corner of the ruling Congress for Carbide and Dow is all too apparent. Dow Chemicals, which has taken over Carbide, has refused to take responsibility for cleaning up the Union Carbide factory wastes, yet Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi continues to be the long-term legal counsel for Dow Chemicals!”
The protest meeting was also led by Prabhat Kumar, Member Central Committee, CPIML Delhi State Committee member Santosh Rai and many others. The meeting was conducted by AISA General Secretary Ravi Rai.
The CPI(ML) through its protest declared that Bhopal is a warning of how the Indian establishment’s policy of pandering to the United States and its corporations is injurious to the health and safety of India’s people. Not only must we protest against the shameful verdict and demand that Warren Anderson be extradited and Dow Chemicals made to pay for cleaning up the polluted sites and for medical care of the victims, we must also insist on the blacklisting of the offending MNCs and above all, scrapping of the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill to ensure that the tragedy of Bhopal and its shameful consequences are never repeated on Indian soil.