Bhopal gas victims protest, demand compensation

Demanding adequate compensation, right treatment and rehabilitation, survivors of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy protested near parliament here Wednesday.

Twenty-nine years after the disaster, five lakh victims were still waiting for a just and adequate compensation, said Sadhna Karnik of the Bhopal Gas Victims Struggle Support Committee.

She said in a statement that survivors demanded Rs.10 lakh compensation to each of the half a million victims.

A list of demands was submitted to the Prime Minister's Office by a delegation that included CPI-M MP Basudeb Acharya.

Lethal gas leaked from the now shut Union Carbide pesticide plant on the night of Dec 2-3, 1984, killing thousands instantly and many more over the years. Many thousands in Bhopal suffer from a variety of ailments.

The statement said half a million victims "have been waiting for just compensation".

It accused the Madhya Pradesh and central governments of providing false data to the Supreme Court on the number of dead and the suffering of those who survived after inhaling the gas.

The statement said while official records put the dead in the disaster at 5,295, "more than 50,000 people have died in the last 29 years".