An Indian court sentenced the former top managers of the company blamed for the massive Bhopal gas leak 25 years ago to two years in prison yesterday in the first convictions over the catastrophe.
Eight people were found guilty in the local court in Bhopal, capital of central Madhya Pradesh state, over the 1984 incident that poisoned tens of thousands of people in the world’s worst industrial accident.
A lethal plume of gas escaped from a storage tank at the US-run Union Carbide pesticide factory in the early hours of Dec. 3, 1984, killing thousands in the surrounding slums and residential area.
Among those found guilty of criminal negligence was the chairman of the Indian unit of US group Union Carbide, Keshub Mahindra, a leading industrialist who is now chairman of car and truck group Mahindra & Mahindra.
The guilty, also including the managing director, the production manager and the plant supervisor, were all sentenced to two years in prison and were ordered to pay a fine of 100,000 rupees (US$2,100), lawyers told reporters.
All of them are now expected to launch appeals and will not be jailed immediately. One of the eight convicted, R.B. Roychoudhury, has already died.
They were originally charged with culpable homicide but — to the outrage of survivors and victims — the Supreme Court in 1996 reduced the charges to death by negligence with maximum imprisonment of just two years.
“Even with the guilty judgment, what does two years punishment mean?” said Sadhna Karnik, of the Bhopal Gas Victims Struggle group. “They will be able to appeal against the judgment in higher courts.”
Government figures put the death toll at 3,500 within the first three days, but independent data by the state-run Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) puts the figure at between 8,000 and 10,000 for the same period.
The ICMR has said that until 1994, 25,000 people also died from the consequences of gas exposure.
Government statistics compiled after 1994 concluded that at least 100,000 people living near the factory in central Madhya Pradesh were chronically sick, with more than 30,000 residing in areas with contaminated water.
Dow Chemical bought Union Carbide in 1999, but said all liabilities related to the accident were cleared in a US$470 million out-of-court settlement with the Indian government in 1989.
A statement released to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the disaster said the settlement “resolved all existing and future claims” against the company.
Union Carbide “did all it could to help the victims and their families” until the settlement and said the Indian government should be responsible for providing clean drinking water and health services to residents, the statement said.
The company said at the time and continues to insist that sabotage was behind the leak, but the victims have long fought for it to provide further compensation.
“Justice will be done in Bhopal only if individuals and corporations responsible are punished in an exemplary manner,” said Rashida Bee, president of the Bhopal Gas Women’s Workers group.
Studies released last year showed the shanty towns surrounding the site were still laced with lethal chemicals that are polluting groundwater and soil, causing birth defects and a range of chronic illnesses.
The state government of Madhya Pradesh, of which Bhopal is the capital, has only partially cleared the area of hundreds of tonnes of toxic material.
Thousands more tonnes lie just meters from the plant in man-made “solar evaporation ponds” where Union Carbide was dumping waste for years before the accident.
State authorities say the material is not harmful and, to prove this, said they planned to open the site to visitors. Officials later reversed that decision.
Most of the settlement money was used to pay compensation of between US$1,000 and US$2,000 to victims who were left unable to work or with long-term ailments, but many received nothing.
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