PREFACE

Before the project-08 "Studies on Clinical and Forensic Toxicology of Bhopal Aerosol Disaster" of the ICMR was terminated in 1992, a consolidated report was compiled and written with active participation of all the members of the project. It was requisitioned and submitted to the ICMR. Further a request was made to Prof. Heeresh Chandra as former Principal Investigator of the project by ICMR to write a final Technical Report of the project, with no financial or technical help to start with. Subsequently, a small sum was sanctioned. Later on, the present DG was convinced, that time and money will be necessary to do this highly technical and academic work, when I met her. The material of this study is all that was available to me as the head of the Institute till 1990. All the autopsies were done under my guidance and supervision with assistance of my subordinate colleagues. All scientific investigations were done entirely by the team financed by the ICMR project. I and my team are grateful to the Government of Madhya Pradesh in the Home and Gas Rahat Departments. To the ICMR - we acknowledge for making the scientists available to evaluate our findings on day to day basis.

The report has been possible due to my private establishment having computer facility that was liberally used. It had taken time but that is justified also. The knowledge and records not included, so far in any report, find place in this report.

A subsequent work of the scientific findings, discussion and conclusion drawn will form another report that will be the essence and soul of this report. It will certainly invite many suggestion to handle such a unfortunate episode.

The day to day assistance provided by Dr. S. Sriramachari, the co-investigator in the project at every stage of writing this report is gratefully acknowledged. His active cooperation throughout the last decade, helped us to stand before the scientific gathering with great confidence.

I have to record the assistance of Dr. Arun Saraf (ARO), who was the backbone in the project to keep, consolidate and present the record to write this report. His excellent command on various softwares of the computer is acknowledged. His basic contribution was submitted as a thesis for Ph.D. with the Barkutullah University, Bhopal. The degree was awarded to him in 1992 (Chromatographic and Mass Spectrometric Studies on Victims of Toxic Gas Exposure of December 1984 at Bhopal). He spent nearly two weeks with Dr. Sriramachari with financial support for TA and DA by the ICMR.

The Computer analysis and handling was further reinforced by Mr. Avinash Galande a ARO in the project till 1992.

In the end,

We are grateful to the victims and departed souls of this BHOPAL AEROSOL episode, for having used their remains for the benefit of the humanity. And to the living morbid people who offer their bodies for investigation to the best of our ability. It is our disability that we cannot see and acknowledge the future trauma the people will suffer. The world is using them as Guinea Pigs to sharper the chemical warfare; to be unaware, is  ironically a bliss.