There is a reason why BP lies at every turn. Why it treats most data and all images as proprietary. It is because money solves all problems and lawyers solve even more.

Indian court convicts 7 in Bhopal gas tragedy

BHOPAL, India – An Indian court Monday convicted seven former senior employees of Union Carbide’s Indian subsidiary of “death by negligence” for their roles in the Bhopal gas tragedy that left an estimated 15,000 people dead more than a quarter century ago in the world’s worst industrial disaster.

The former employees, many of them in their 70s, were sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to pay fines of 100,000 rupees ($2,175) apiece. All seven were released on bail shortly after the verdict.

The subsidiary, Union Carbide India Ltd., was convicted of the same charge and ordered to pay a fine of rupees 500,000 ($10,870). Union Carbide eventually sold its shares in the subsidiary company, which was renamed Eveready Industries India.

India’s Central Bureau of Investigation, the country’s top investigative agency, has said the plant had not been following proper safety procedures before the disaster.

Large groups of survivors and relatives, along with rights activists, gathered in the city and chanted slogans saying the verdict was too little, too late.

Early on Dec. 3, 1984, a pesticide plant run by Union Carbide leaked about 40 tons of deadly methyl isocyanate gas into the air in the city of Bhopal in central India, quickly killing about 4,000 people. The lingering effects of the poison raised the death toll to about 15,000 over the next few years, according to government estimates.

Local activists insist the real numbers are almost twice that, and say the company and government have failed to clean up toxic chemicals at the plant, which closed after the accident.

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This will end up at the Roberts Court eventually and they will toss. Criminal charges? HAHAHAHAHA what a funny thought.

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