Other States - Madhya Pradesh   

Court records statements of Bhopal gas disaster accused

Staff Correspondent

Three main accused give statements, court fixes March 1, 2 and 3 for further recording

BHOPAL: The Bhopal Chief Judicial Magistrate's Court on Tuesday continued the proceedings linked with the 1984 Union Carbide gas disaster and recorded the statements of three main accused — the former Works Manager, Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), J. Mukund, former production Manager at the UCIL Bhopal plant, K.V. Shetty and the Production Assistant at the same plant, Shakil Ibrahim Qureshi.

The other main accused, Keshub Mahindra, Vijay Gokhale, Kishore Kamdar, and S.P. Chaudhary, were also present in court to record their statements. While Mr. Mahindra is the former Chairman UCIL, Mr. Gokhale was the Managing Director of UCIL at the time of the gas disaster, Mr. Kamdar was the Vice President and Mr. Chaudhary was the Production Manager.

After recording the statements of the accused for the second consecutive day, the court fixed March 1, 2 and 3 for further recording of their statements. The statements of the accused are being recorded as the court gives the opportunity to the accused to explain the circumstances appearing as evidence against them.

The statements recorded by Mr. Mukund and Mr. Qureshi on Tuesday were similar to those recorded by the main accused, Mr. Mahindra, Mr. Gokhale and Mr. Kamdar on Monday. Their response to most of the queries was that "they had no knowledge as they were not present."

Mr. Mukund, however, said that it was wrong on the part of a witness to complain that the public had not been informed by the plant authorities about the remedial measures that were to be taken if there was a gas leak. He contradicted many witnesses saying that it was wrong to say that the people had never been informed what was to be done in case of a gas leak.

Responding to another witness, he said it is factually incorrect to say "there were minor incidents of gas leak in the past but what had occurred on the midnight of December 2 and 3 was the worst leakage."

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Court records statements of Bhopal gas disaster accused

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu