Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmachari Sangh
Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha
Bhopal Group for Information & Action
Bhopal ki Aawaaz
PRESS STATEMENT
More than 200 survivors of the December 1984 Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal today demonstrated before the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers at Shastri Bhavan, New Delhi demanding punitive action against the Chairman of the Bhopal Memorial Hospital Trust in Bhopal. Undaunted by the presence of over 100 policemen the demonstrators demanded to see the Director of the Bhopal Cell at the Ministry of Chemicals for an official response to the serious irregularities in the Bhopal Memorial Hospital Trust.
The demonstrators succeeded in obtaining a meeting with the Director of the Bhopal Cell, Yashvir Singh and a delegation of six members – Rashida Bee, Shahid Noor, Syyed M Irfan, Rachna Dhingra and Satinath Sarangi all from Bhopal and Madhumita Dutta from New Delhi presented their demands to the official.
The Bhopal delegation asked for reconstitution of the Bhopal Memorial Trust to ensure representation of survivors of the disaster and employees of the hospital. They also demanded that criminal proceedings must be initiated against the Chairman of the Trust Mr. A M Ahmadi and the working trustee Mr Aziz Siddiqui for causing the death of 3 survivors by locking them out of the Trust’s hospital.
The delegation alleged misappropriation of Trust’s funds by Ahmadi and Siddiqui and called for a full disclosure of the Trust’s Corpus fund and account of income and expenditure since its inception. Representatives of the survivors organizations also demanded that people poisoned due to contamination of ground water by Union Carbide’s chemical wastes must also be provided treatment at the Bhopal Memorial Trust’s hospital. The delegation demanded to know what role the Ministry of Chemicals has played in the running of the Memorial Trust.
The delegation blamed the Ministry of Chemicals of deliberate neglect towards implementation of the May 2004 order of the Supreme Court regarding supply of clean water to the communities affected by ground water contamination. They also charged the Ministry of collusion with American Dow Chemical Company in the clean up of the toxic waste in and around the Union Carbide factory and in proposing to buy Union Carbide’s technology for the Panipat refinery run by Indian Oil corporation – a public sector undertaking.
Mr Yashvir Singh promised the delegation of sending a response to these demands and also to personally visit Bhopal to gain first hand information regarding the various issues that continue to ail the victims of the world’s worst industrial disaster more than 20 years after its occurrence.
Rashida Bee, Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmachari Sangh
+91 9303132298
Syyed M Irfan, Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha
Shahid Noor, Bhopal ki Aawaaz
Rachna Dingra, Satinath Sarangi, Bhopal Group for Information & Action
+91 9826167369
Madhumita Dutta, The Other Media
Contact :
House No. 12, Gali No. 2, Baug Umrao Dulha, Bhopal 462 010
For latest news updates please visit www.bhopal.net
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