Bhopal gas tragedy

The escape of about 40 tonnes of methyl isocyanate (MIC) – a highly toxic chemical – from a storage tank on the premises of the pesticide plant of Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) in Bhopal – the capital of the State of Madhya Pradesh – on the night of 02/03 December 1984 resulted in a horrendous disaster. Due to criminal negligence and utter callousness on the part of the plant management in taking adequate safety precautions, water and other impurities – that cause MIC to react violently – entered one of the MIC storage tanks resulting in exothermic reactions and forcing MIC and its reaction products to escape in the form of froth and lethal gases.

Students of NLIU Bhopal organised a run to show support for the victims of year 1984’s Bhopal Gas Tragedy on 2 December, through their student-run organisation People United for Law, Education and Rehabilitation (PULER).

PULER partnered with rehabilitation organisation Rajeev Smriti Gas Peedit Punarwaas Kendra (RSGPP) to organise the event a day before the anniversary on which citizens of the city commemorate the victims of the tragedy.

The 7 km run saw around 1000 participants mostly from Bhopal schools and colleges. Another part to the event included a poster-making competition for school-going children on 25 November. All activities were arranged by over 100 student volunteers of the law school, according to a press statement from the organisers.

India’s Supreme Court has today dismissed the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) curative petition to reinstate culpable homicide charges against those responsible for the Bhopal gas disaster.

A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court has issued notices to Union Carbide Corp and Dow Chemicals for increasing compensation to victims of Bhopal gas leak from Rs 750 crore to Rs 7,844 crore while hearing the Union government’s curative petition today.

The Supreme Court has reopened the Bhopal gas leak disaster case today after a curative petition filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), seeking harsher punishments for the accused after convictions in June resulted in a two-year suspended jail sentence for those responsible.

The former Indian chairman and six other directors, managers and staff of Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) have been sentenced to two years imprisonment for causing death by negligence in the world's biggest industrial gas leak disaster in Bhopal in 1984 that had killed up to tens of thousands.