Chronicle Reporter, Bhopal, Special children of Chingari Rehabilitation Centre a peaceful candlelight vigil at Neelam Park on the eve of Bhopal gas tragedy as a mark of tribute to the martyrs of gas leak.
Each year, as the anniversary of the disaster approaches, children being treated at the Chingari Trust Rehabilitation Centre gather to hold their own candlelit vigil in honour of the thousands who perished during the Gas Tragedy of 1984.
Children with different type of congenital disabilities like cerebral palsy, Down’s syndrome, muscular dystrophy, hearing impairedness, etc participated in this candlelight vigil. The main motto of this peaceful candlelight tribute was to remember the pain and trauma their loved ones had endured.
These children also want the world to learn a lesson from this tragedy and take preventive measures to avoid the recurrence of any such negligent disaster anywhere else in the world. These children are born disabled due to the poisons of Dow Chemical/Union Carbide and not due to nature. We need to learn from this tragedy and create a world where companies cannot spread such poisons. So that, such disabled children are not born.
Chingari Trust has, for the last 12 years, been taking care of the children born with congenital disorders to families affected by the poisonous gas leak of 1984 and the ground water contamination thereafter.
As of today, over nine hundred such children are already registered with Chingari Rehabilitation Centre, with about three hundred children coming each day to get physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, special education, supplementary nutrition provisions and transportation facilities – all free of charge.
It may be recalled here that on the intervening night of December 2-3, 1984 Union Carbide pesticide manufacturing factory had spewed poisonous Methyl Iso-cyanate gas whereby 3000 people had perished virtually instantly and over the years more than 25000 have kissed death and the sad saga is still continuing uninterruptedly. About half a million are suffering from the side effects of the poisonous gas and several thousand people have been maimed for life.