BHOPAL (PTI): Nine persons including the former chairman of Union Carbide, Keshub Mahindra, and the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), were April 8 charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder in connection with the Bhopal gas disaster of December 1984.
Five of the accused, all Indians, were posted at the Union Carbide plant from where a Methyl Isocynate (MIC) gas leak killed over 3000 people in the world’s worst industrial disaster in this central Indian city.
Only two of the accused were present in the court when district additional sessions judge Wajat Ali Ahah read out the charges.
The five who were stationed at the plant when the disaster occurred were former works manager J.Mukund, former assistant works manager R.B.Roy Choudhury, former production manager S.P.Choudhury, production assistant S.i.Quereshi and plant superintendent K.V Shetty. The judge also charged four more accused former UCIL Chairman Keshub Mahindra, former managing director and present UCIL CMD Vijay Gokhale, former vice president in charge Kishore Kamdar and UGIL.
The chairman of Union Carbide corporation at the time of the disaster, Warren Anderson, Union Carbide corporation and the Union Carbide (Eastern), Hong Kong the tree other accused in the case, have been declared absconders and a case against them is being heard in the court of the chief judicial magistrate.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 16, 1993
