Church to support Bhopal verdict appeal

(June 10, 2010) The Church is to back a fight by Bhopal disaster victims to overturn a court verdict and demand stronger sentences against eight senior Union Carbide employees, a spokesman has said. “The Church will provide any help, if required,” Father Anand Muttungal, spokesperson of the Catholic Church in Madhya Pradesh state, said on June 9. A gas leak in Bhopal on December 3, 1984, killed more than 20,000 people and affected 550,000 others in what was the world’s worst industrial disaster. On June 7, a court convicted the eight employees and sentenced them to two years imprisonment. They were also fined 100,000 rupees each. Abdul Jabbar, who coordinates a forum for the gas victims, said his group has decided to appeal the verdict in the state High Court. “We want stringent action against all those involved,” he said. The group will demand trying the culprits for “culpable homicide” which gets a maximum ten years in jail. The convicted employees were tried for causing death by negligence. The group also wants the extradition of principle defendant Warren Anderson, who was Carbide’s chairman at the time of the disaster, Jabbar said. The Bhopal court declared him an absconder after he failed to appear for the trial. Father Muttungal said the Church also wants the government to push for Anderson’s extradition. “The Church has been with the victims since the tragedy struck and will continue to be with them in their endeavours for justice,” he said