Delhi assured Anderson “safe passage”: ex-US diplomat

New Delhi: A startling revelation by an ex-high ranking US diplomat that it was Delhi which had assured "safe passage" to then Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson once he expressed a desire to visit the disaster struck city has put the cat squarely amongst the pigeons as far as the Congress party is concerned. Of late the Congress has been getting extremely creative in digging up reasons for principal accused Warren Andersons easy escape from the country.

The revelation has been made by Gordon Streeb who was the former deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Delhi, and the acting chief, at the time of the Bhopal crisis in 1984.

The US ambassador, Harry G Barnes, was out of India at the time of the disaster and it was Streeb who was liaising with the ministry of external affairs on this issue.

Streeb is currently a visiting professor of economics at Emory University in the US.

Leaking poisonous methyl-isocyanate gas from the Union Carbide pesticide plant in the central Indian city of Bhopal killed nearly 5,000 people instantly on the night of 2-3 December 1984 and atleast 20,000 thereafter.

Reports say that Streeb was contacted at the mission by Union Carbide to find out if their chairman, Warren Anderson, would receive safe passage going in and coming out of India should he visit Bhopal to show "concern for the victims" at the "highest level of the company".