 |
| A protester stands on a train and shouts slogans in Bhopal on Saturday. (AP) |
Bhopal, Dec. 3: Patience gave way after 27 years today when angry gas tragedy survivors attacked police, blocked trains and indulged in large-scale violence in Bhopal.
Taken aback, the police fired in the air and used tear gas and lathicharge to beat back the crowd.
Bhopal district collector Nikunj Srivastava, who suffered minor injuries, said in the evening: “The situation is under control now. We do not have the exact figures for how many protesters got injured but several policemen got injured in the clashes.”
Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan said: “I sympathise with the plight and misery of gas survivors,” and offered to take up the matter with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Five NGOs considered close to Greenpeace had called for a rail blockade on the 27th anniversary of the gas leak that ranks among the world’s worst industrial disasters.
Fighting for compensation for the gas victims, their main demand was that for correction of the official figures of those killed and grievously affected by the leak of methyl isocyanate gas from the Union Carbide factory here in December 1984.
The Bhopal railway station is one of the busiest junctions in the country and the NGOs were not allowed permission to hold their protest there. Instead, they chose the Barkhedi railway crossing, located in a densely populated neighbourhood. About 1,500 protesters, mostly women, were initially seen sitting on the tracks. Trouble began around 11am when the police tried to move the squatters by force, and they retaliated by throwing stones.
Rachna Dhingra of the Bhopal Group of Information and Action, one of the NGOs, said: “The police lathicharged a group of women protesters after they burnt an effigy. This angered the men who retaliated by throwing stones at the police. In the process, some people sustained injuries and a police vehicle was torched.”
The protesters set on fire two government vehicles, a vehicle of a photographer, smashed an OB van of a private news channel and damaged several police vehicles.
As a result of the clash, 19 trains were disrupted and seven passengers trains cancelled.
Abdul Jabbar, himself a gas victim and convener of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangthan, said: “The struggle for justice has been going on for 26 years and yet there has never been any violent incident ever.”
|
