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80 protestors who walked 500 miles detained
Police have detained 80 people who walked nearly 500 miles from the site of a catastrophic 1984 gas leak in central India to protest outside the prime minister's residence in New Dehli, an organiser said.
The protesters, including 52 children, were calling for the site of the Bhopal gas leak to be cleaned up and for survivors to be compensated, said Rachna Dhingra, a spokeswoman for Bhopal Group for Information and Action.
Guards took the protesters to a nearby police station soon after they arrived outside Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's official residence, Dhingra said. They were freed two hours later.
Police officer Jagat Singh said the protesters came without an appointment with the prime minister, and protests are not allowed around the official residence.
The leak from the Bhopal pesticide plant in 1984 killed at least 10,000 people and affected about 550,000 others.
A subsidiary of US chemical company Union Carbide ran the plant at the time.
For decades, survivors have been fighting to have the site cleaned up, but they say their efforts were slowed when Michigan-based Dow Chemical Co. took over Union Carbide in 2001, seven years after Union Carbide sold its interest in the Bhopal plant.
The protesters' nearly 500-mile walk from Bhopal to the Indian capital took 37 days to complete, said Yasmin Khan, 11.
They decided to demonstrate outside the prime minister's residence after failing to schedule a meeting with him.
10:54am Tuesday 6th May 2008
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