Has nothing untoward happened in your city? Is it true you really haven’t heard the screams?
I’ve been flustered for a while about this city, That doesn’t he see all that is happening here?
These lines by Dr Sheheryar sum up the pain of Bhopal and of that fateful night on December 3, 1984, when the poisonous methyl isocyanate leak from Union Carbide’s Bhopal plant killed 3,500 people and adversely affected as many as 2 lakh people. The irony? Those guilty of the accident were given just two years’ imprisonment by the Supreme Court. That’s because when the Supreme Court heard the trial for the death of so many people, they were booked under Section 304 (A) (Death due to negligence), under which those found guilty were to get a maximum of two years imprisonment. If the Supreme Court retracts from its ruling, the guilty can be booked under Section 304 (Part 2), which could result in their imprisonment of upto 10 years.