Survivors and victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy have decided to mark November 1, celebrated as the Madhya Pradesh foundation day, a “black day” in protest against the negligible progress made on the recommendations made by the Empowered Group of Ministers (GoM) last year.
Apart from this, over 5,000 victims and survivors, led by the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan (BGPMUS) will also stage a protest in front of the Prime Minister's residence on November 1, the group's convener Abdul Jabbar told The Hindu .
“The victims will also write a letter every day till November 1 to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, GoM chairperson P. Chidambaram and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, pointing out the consistent betrayal they have faced at the hands of all three,” said Mr. Jabbar.
“According to our estimate, about 1,000 victims have died due to lack of timely relief in the form of compensation,” said Mr. Jabbar.
Five other organisations, led by the Bhopal Group for Information and Action (BGIA), have called for a Bhopal Bandh, a peaceful shutdown on October 11 to bring to light the “wrong and thoroughly unscientific data” presented by the Centre and the State in the curative petition for revised compensation filed in the Supreme Court.
“In the curative petition for compensation from Union Carbide and Dow Chemical, the Central and State governments have presented thoroughly unscientific data on the deaths and health damages caused by the disaster,” said Satinath Sarangi of the Bhopal Group of Information and Action.
