PM urged to fulfill promises made to Bhopal gas tragedy victims

New Delhi, Apr 22 (UNI) Attacking the Centre for turning a blind eye to the plight of the Bhopal Gas tragedy victims, several Rajya Sabha members today urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to bring the guilty to book and fulfill other promises made to the affected people when they had travelled to the capital two years ago to submit their demands to the government.

Raising the issue during the Zero Hour in the House, Mr D Raja of the Communist Party of India(CPI) said the victims were sitting on a dharna in the capital again and not as much for monetary compensation as for taking steps like environmental clean up, punishment to the guilty and medical care.

He said that since the deadly gas leakage in the Union Carbide factory in 1984, hundreds of children had been deformed and thousands of people developed disabilities, but so far the guilty had escaped punishment.

Mr Raja said that even today some multinationals like Dow Chemicals were trying to influence high officials to get immunity for producing three pesticides, one of which was highly harmful for children and had been banned in USA.

Mr Raja urged the Prime Minister not to make further delay in providing relief to the victims and taking stringent action against officials who were colluding with the guilty companies.

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