Bhopal: As the trial court gets ready to pronounce its verdict in the Bhopal gas tragedy case next week, the survivors of the 1984 industrial disaster have started giving "capital punishment" to the accused by hanging their effigies at public places here.
"We are preparing the effigies of the accused of the world`s worst industrial disaster and hanging them at different squares as it gives us some solace from our sufferings," said Shamshad Bi, who lost her lone five-year-old -son and mother-in-law in the gas tragedy.
"We lived in J P Nagar, just opposite the Union Carbide factory (now defunct) when the toxic gas leaked on the intervening night of December 2-3 1984," Shamshad, who was then 23-year-old, recalled.
"We are going to hang more effigies, at Budhwara and Imami Gate Chowk, before the trial court gives its verdict on June 7," Hamida Bi, another survivor and a member of Bhopal Gas Peedith Mahila Udyog Sanghathan, said.
In all, we will be hanging nearly 64 effigies of the accused, including that of Warren Anderson, the then Chairman of Union Carbide Corporation, USA, who had been declared an absconder in the case, she said.
"We prepare these effigies with our meagre resources and hanging them gives us some peace of mind," Hamida said.
PTI
