Giving a new spin on why Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson was allowed to leave the country after the Bhopal gas tragedy, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today said the then Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Arjun Singh had taken the decision keeping in view the prevailing law and order situation.
Though Mukherjee, like many Congress leaders, squarely put the onus of the decision on Singh, he said this was “thought necessary” as tempers were running high.
The BJP and the Left parties mounted pressure demanding action against those who allowed Anderson to flee and justice for the victims of the tragedy.
In Kolkata, Mukherjee told reporters, “The statement made by Singh as Madhya Pradesh CM five days after the Bhopal disaster had been published in a newspaper.”
“It is very clear from the statement of Arjun Singh, which was published in The Times of India on December 8, 1984, that the law and order situation in Bhopal would have deteriorated and people’s frenzy and temper were running high. Therefore, it was thought necessary to send him (Anderson) out of Bhopal,” he said.
He was asked if the Congress was trying to shield Singh on the issue of exit of Anderson from the country.
On whether the government was considering Anderson’s extradition to India, Mukherjee said the government would look into the legal avenues available for the possible extradition.
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“Though we cannot comment on the court judgement, we have to go to a higher judiciary where there is an appellate provision. We will appeal there,” he said.
Mukherjee’s comments came after several Congress leaders had emphatically dismissed suggestions that Singh had acted at the behest of Rajiv Gandhi and mounted pressure on the senior Congress leader to break his silence on the issue.
Former Union minister Arun Nehru, a close aide of Rajiv Gandhi, took a similar line saying Singh had taken the decision based on the ground situation then.
“Trying to judge events in 2010 by the ground realities existing in 1984 can never be right,” Nehru, who was Congress general secretary in 1984 but later parted ways with Gandhi and has no association with the party now, said in Delhi.
In Bangalore, Union minister Salman Khurshid said emotions should not be allowed to be mixed with law and stressed the need for enacting a special legislation to deal with such disasters.
In Patna, the BJP sought action against those who allowed the “guilty to flee”.
“The life of an Indian is not cheap in comparison to any American or anybody else. The gross injustice which the victims of Union Carbide gas tragedy in Bhopal have suffered must make us all alive to this critical aspect. The BJP demands all requisite steps be taken for expeditious justice to the victims of the Bhopal tragedy,” the party said.
In Bhopal, Left parties announced they would launch a fortnight-long protest in the state demanding justice for the victims of the gas tragedy.
The Left parties demanded retrial of the accused under stringent sections of the IPC, extradition of Anderson from the US and his prosecution.