BHOPAL: On the day the US President Donald Trump made his maiden visit to the country, the Bhopal Gas Disaster survivors staged demonstration at Iqbal Maidan here against US administration for refusing to serve Bhopal court summons on Dow Chemical, the owner of Union Carbide. Scores of Bhopal gas tragedy victims, including women and children, staged protest on Monday raising slogans against the US government.
Madhya Pradesh Muslim Vikas Parishad, a local social service organisation, supported the demonstrators’ call for justice in the criminal case on the World’s worst industrial disaster.
Rashida Bee, president of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangh, said, “Since 2016 when Trump came to power, the Bhopal district court has twice summoned Dow Chemical, the owner of Union Carbide, that is absconding charges of corporate manslaughter, but Trump’s Department of Justice has refused to serve these summons upon Dow.”
Rachna Dhingra of the Bhopal Group for Information & Action(BGIA) said, “It is now clear that Trump is visiting India mainly to further the interests of death dealing US corporations like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Westinghouse and others. It is indeed shocking that our Prime Minister in his eagerness to please Trump has not sought, let alone pressed for US governments’ cooperation in bringing the killers of Bhopal to justice.”
Nasreen Khan of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha said, ”In violating the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) between India and USA, the Trump government is sheltering the perpetrators of the worst corporate massacre in history.” In Bhopal hundreds of victims of Union Carbide are still dying untimely deaths, hundreds of thousands are battling chronic illnesses and tens of thousands of children are being born with malformations and growth disorders.
