KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Fourteen months after the Bhopal tragedy in India, Union Carbide officials are citing sabotage as the most likely cause of the gas leak that killed between 1,700 and 2,500 people.

"It can be the guards turned assassin," said Ron Van Mynen, who headed the investigative team Union Carbide sent to its India plant immediately after the accident.

"Hundreds" of plant employees knew which chemicals at the plant would create a deadly reaction when mixed, he said Wednesday at an engineering conference here. "We have all but ruled out everything but sabotage."

Besides the deaths that occurred shortly after the accident, 200,000 other people exposed to the methyl isocyanate vapors suffered ill-effects, and others die each month.