Lucknow, April 24: A woman teacher on Tuesday tried to set herself on fire in front of the Vidhan Sabha building here, alleging that the Principal of her school had molested her and the police was not entertaining her complaint.
The woman said that she had also gone to the 5, Kalidas Marg residence of the Chief Minister to raise the matter but she was shooed away.
She then tried to immolate herself in front of the state assembly building, which also faces the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state headquarters.
The police present there immediately rushed in and prevented the woman from setting herself afire. She had already doused herself with kerosene and was striking a match stick when the woman police personnel overpowered her.
Rashmi Vishwakarma, said she teaches at Saraswati Shishu Mandir school and her Principal Vinod Awasthi molested her and had been torturing her ever since she told him that she would lodge a complaint with the police and make the matter public. She also accused the local police of not doing anything on her complaint.
On the contrary, she alleged, the Qaiserbagh and Chowk police station officials were pressurising her to compromise and close the matter.
When she tried to torch herself, Agriculture Minister Surya Pratap Sahi and Social Welfare Minister Ramapati Shastri were present in the BJP office for the "Jan Sunwai" programme, where ministers of the state government listen to the problems of the people and order necessary action.
The incident came as a chilling reminder of a similar incident a few weeks back when a woman accused a BJP legislator of rape and tried to set herself on fire. Later, her father was picked up by the police and beaten to death in custody.
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Bhopal gas tragedy: Effects of leak seen in next generation of survivors, says ex-forensic doctor
Bhopal (PTI): The effects of poisonous gases that leaked from the Union Carbide factory in Madhya Pradesh's Bhopal 40 years ago were seen in the next generations of those who survived the tragedy, a former government forensic doctor has said.
At least 3,787 people were killed, and more than five lakh were affected after a toxic gas leaked from the pesticide factory in the city on the intervening night of December 2 and 3, 1984.
Speaking at an event held by organisations of gas tragedy survivors on Saturday, Dr D K Satpathy, former head of the forensics department of Bhopal's Gandhi Medical College, said he performed 875 post-mortems on the first day of the disaster and witnessed 18,000 autopsies the next five years.
Sathpathy claimed Union Carbide had denied questions about the effects of poisonous gases on unborn children of women survivors and said effects would not cross the placental barrier in the womb in any condition.
He said blood samples of pregnant women who died in the tragedy were examined, and it was found that 50 per cent of poisonous substances found in the mother were also found in the child in her womb.
Children born to surviving mothers had the poisonous substances in their system, and this affected the health of the next generation, Sathpathy claimed and questioned why research on this was stopped.
Such effects will continue for generations, he said.
Satpathy said it was said that MIC gas leaked from the Union Carbide plant, and when it came in contact with water, thousands of gases were formed, and some of these caused cancer, blood pressure and liver damage.
Rachna Dhingra of Bhopal Group for Information and Action said Satpathy, who carried out most autopsies, and other first responders in the 1984 disaster, including the senior doctors in the emergency ward and persons involved in mass burials, narrated their experiences during the event.
Rashida Bee, president of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangh, a poster exhibition covering every aspect of the disaster will be held till December 4 to mark the 40th anniversary of the tragedy.
An anniversary rally will be organised, with focus on global corporate crimes such as industrial pollution and climate change, she said.
