Hyderabad, June 15: The CPI today demanded that the Group of Ministers, reconstituted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to look into the Bhopal tragedy issue, should fix responsibility on those who provided safe passage to Union Carbide Chief Warren Anderson after the tragedy that claimed more than 20,000 lives.
Talking to reporters after the three-day National Council and Executive meeting which concluded here yesterday, CPI General Secretary A B Bardhan said the Centre should initiate steps to book all those responsible for the incident. Those responsible–both at the Centre and the state government –for the safe passage of Mr Anderson soon after the incident should be booked, he added.
Claiming that Mr Anderson could not have fled the country without the knowledge of then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, he alleged that the Congress was now trying to protect the late leader. Reiterating that the Centre should initiate legal action against the former Union Carbide Chairman, Mr Bardhan said he should be brought to India from the US and prosecuted.
Apart from fixing the responsibility on those who provided safe passage to Mr Anderson, the GoM should also ensure relief and rehabilitation of the victims and come out with a time bound programme on removal of toxic waste in and around Bhopal. Alleging that successive Governments at the Centre, both the Congress and the BJP-led NDA, had failed to protect the interests of the victims of the tragedy, Mr Bardhan said the CPI would waid for the GoM’s report till the next session of Parliament.
”If it failed to submit the report, the CPI will launch an agitation on the issue’, he warned. Accusing the BJP of trying to pretend that it was fighting for justice on Bhopal tragedy, Mr Bardhan sought to know what the BJP was doing during its six-year rule at the Centre. ”They had not taken any steps to bring new law to punish the guilty”, he charged.
——-Agencies