New Delhi: Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh has said the Madhya Pradesh government in 1984 should not be blamed for Warren Anderson, former chairman of the American parent company Union Carbide Corp responsible for the Bhopal gas tragedy, getting out of the country.
“The state government hardly had any role to play in this case. The case was being investigated by the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation); the compensation was decided by the judiciary. Warren Anderson going away could have been under American pressure,” he said.
Singh, a Congress general secretary and two-time Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, said the Central government “took all decisions” about the investigation into the gas leak and the state government was following its orders. “There was a Cabinet Committee in the government of India which took all decisions regarding this case. The only task the government of Madhya Pradesh was to get the decisions implemented,” he said.
Singh was responding to statements made by Moti Singh, who was the District Collector of Bhopal at the time of gas leak from the Union Carbide plant, that Anderson was arrested but released on orders from the Chief Secretary of Madhya Pradesh government.
Anderson was arrested on December 7 after the gas leak from the Union Carbide plant on December 1 but he was released the same day and flew out of Bhopal in a state government plane to New Delhi, Moti Singh told CNN-IBN.
Digvijay Singh’s statements defend Congress leader Arjun Singh, who was Madhya Pradesh’s Chief Minister in 1984, but they could be construed as blaming the Central government at that time.
Anderson was charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder, grievous assault and killing and poisoning human beings and animals due to leakage of the MIC gas from the Union Carbide's pesticide plant in Bhopal.
A Bhopal trial court on Monday convicted eight Indian officials of Union Carbide for their criminal negligence that triggered the world's worst industrial disaster, but Anderson was not mentioned in the judgment.
Law Minister Veerappa Moily on Tuesday told CNN-IBN the “case” against Anderson was not closed and blamed a former Central Bureau of Investigation officer, who had investigated the gas leak, of not pressing for the American’s extradition.
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