New Delhi: The victims of the notorious Bhopal gas tragedy, the accused of which and Union Carbide owner Warren Anderson had slipped out of the country surreptitiously, have again called for an inquiry into the role of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

In a letter to the President of India, members of the ‘Bhopal Gas Peedit Sangharsh Samiti’ (association of the victims of Bhopal gas tragedy) have raked up longstanding allegations against late Rajiv Gandhi and have said that he and the then chief minister of Madhya Pradesh late Arjun Singh colluded to whisk Anderson out of the country in the aftermath of the tragedy. They called for an inquiry into the allegations.

“In this industrial disaster hundreds were killed, and many more houses were destroyed. Following generations have suffered. The person responsible for this Warren Anderson’s exit from India was facilitated. A conspiracy behind this has long been suspected, and the victims have only waited for justice. 

Even within Parliament, a possible conspiracy was pointed at: what was the relationship between the release of Adil Shaharyar, accused of terrorism in the US and the slipping away of Anderson out of India?” the head of the committee, Gopal Paigwar wrote in the letter.

According to an oft-floated conspiracy, it is alleged that Shaharyar, son of Mohammad Yunus who was an Indira and Nehru loyalist and one of the staunchest apologists of the Emergency, was released by the US authorities despite facing a 35-year jail term for severe crimes in exchange for the release of Anderson out of India without facing any flak for India’s biggest ever industrial accident.

“What transpired during the 1985 US tour of Rajiv Gandhi that Adil Shaharyar was released suddenly? What was the relation between Mohammad Yunus and Rajiv Gandhi and his family? The nation needs to know the truth about the documents in this regard which are with the US agencies,” the letter said.