Bhopal Tragedy Survivors End Hunger Strike After Govt Assurance On Compensation

The ten women agitators broke their 29-hour-long fast on Saturday with fruit juice offered by officials of the state government and district administration.

The deserted Union Carbide gas plant which housed the world's worst industrial accident.

Source : Getty

New Delhi: The Madhya Pradesh and Union governments have agreed to increase the compensation for the victims of the 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy. The government decision came following ten women survivors on Friday launched a hunger strike in Bhopal's Neelam Park, demanding additional compensation for the disaster victims.

They called off their fast after getting positive responses from both governments, their leaders said as reported by PTI.

The ten women agitators broke their 29-hour-long hunger strike on Saturday with fruit juice offered by officials of the state government and district administration, according to PTI.

The Bhopal Gas Tragedy took place on the intervening night of December 2-3, 1984 when poisonous methyl isocyanate gas leaked from the Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal, leaving several thousand people dead and lakhs injured.

Five organisations that are fighting for the cause of the tragedy victims in a statement on Saturday said the Madhya Pradesh Minister of Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief & Rehabilitation expressed agreement with the facts and figures presented by them and promised to finalise details in a meeting on January 4, reported PTI.

Earlier, the Union government had assured that all the documents put forth by them would be included in the papers to be presented before the Supreme Court bench hearing a curative petition for additional compensation, they said.

"Despite all odds and many disappointments of the last 38 years, we hope the New Year has begun with a hope for the survivors of the world's worst industrial disaster," the statement said.

The agitators were from the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangh, Bhopal Gas Peedit Nirashrit Pensionbhogee Sangharsh Morcha, Bhopal Group for Information & Action, Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha and Children Against Dow Carbide.

(With inputs from PTI)