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Bhopal Gas Victims Want Chidambaram Out of GOM

  • Survivors of the Bhopal gas disaster and victims organizations on Saturday burnt effigies of Union Home minister P Chidambaram, protesting against the recent decision of the Group of Ministers (GoM) not to revise the figures of death toll and those maimed in the world's largest industrial disaster in 1984. Blaming the centre for not revising the figures of deaths and injured in the curative petition pending before the Supreme Court, the victim organizations now plan to take their protests to New Delhi, demanding removal of Chidambaram from the GoM. The protests were held at the Yaadgar-e-Shahjehani amid heavy police bandobust, particularly in the wake of recent violent agitation by the gas victims on the anniversary day Bhopal gas tragedy on December three. 

  • "Such a unilateral decision cannot be imposed on the gas victims. It is against the data from scientific studies by the government's very own apex research agency Indian Council of Medical Research," said Satinath Sarangi of Bhopal Group for Information and Action (BGIA). BGIA and Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangthan (BGPMUS), two NGOs working among the victims for the last more than two and a half decade, claim that actual figure of casualties is much higher than the official figure. "A minister who can devote more time should have been entrusted with the charge. It has been our demand since the GoMB's inception," said Sarangi. Friday's GoM meeting was its second since it was formed in June 2010. "The government has declined to change the official death toll of 5,295 it filed before the Supreme Court. Now we will collect data of the gas victims and pressurize the central government to accept our demands," said activist Rashida Bi. However BGPMUS convener Abdul Jabbar reiterated, "It is for the state government to collect the data by inviting fresh claims and assessing it scientifically. You cannot pull out a figure from the box and suggest it. A scientific study is long pending and only that will give justice to the gas victims."

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