Bhopal: One of the accused in the infamous 1984 Union Carbide gas leak incident, Shaqeel Ahmed Qureshi was brought to Bhopal district and sessions court in an ambulance on Wednesday.
As Qureshi wasn’t able to reach the court, the district and sessions judge Rajendra Kumar Mathur along with his subordinates came down to the ambulance parked in the court campus to identify him.
He was an operator in the Union Carbide MiC production unit and was on duty during the 1984 tragedy on December 2 and 3, 1984.
Accompanying his ailing father, Qureshi's son told News18 that his father could not produce himself before the court after suffering heart attack in the year 2010.
The Bhopal court issued multiple summons against him in all these years but he was unaware of these orders, pleaded his son claiming his father is bed ridden for years and has a restricted movement.
We kept treating him and had little idea that all these years passed by, he added.
The court, had meanwhile, issued several summons against Shaqeel only to be told by the CBI every time that it has no clue about the fugitive. The court had also pulled up the investigative agency on this.
Qureshi has been arrested from Nagpur in Maharashtra where he settled with his family after the 1984 tragedy and engaged in some business. It is said that Qureshi with his sons based in Indore and Bhopal had disappeared overnight after the gas leak.
On June 7, 2010, a CJM court in Bhopal had awarded jail term and penalties to seven accused. The CBI on this appealed in sessions court to enhance jail term while the accused had approached higher court with the plea of innocence.
Qureshi who had appeared before the court last time in 2016 was punished with two-year jail term and one lakh fine.
It is alleged that till now, the investigators had no identity proof of Qureshi and no details of his whereabouts.
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