Reports claim that eight people were found guilty by an Indian court over the 1984 Bhopal gas leak.

It is believed that amongst the eight people charged, the then-head of the Company is also included who was blamed for poisoning tens of thousands of people.

Out of the total of those found guilty in the local state court, the Chairman of the Indian unit of US group Union Carbide, Keshub Mahindra was also included.

In what has been one of the most horrific incidents in the Indian history, the Union Carbide factory gas leak has left an indelible mark on the hearts of thousands of people.

Killing thousands of people instantly in the world's worst industrial catastrophe, in the early hours of December 3, 1984, a deadly plume of gas escaped from a storage tank at the US-run Union Carbide pesticide factory.

The culprits in the case were originally charged with culpable homicide; however, due to the indignation of the survivors and the victims, in 1996 the Supreme Court reduced the charges to death by negligence with maximum imprisonment of meager two years.

As per the statistics of the Government, which were compiled after 1994 it was concluded that at least 100,000 people who lived near the factory in central Madhya Pradesh state were chronically sick. Also, there were more than
30,000 people who were residing in areas with contaminated water.

In a statement, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described Bhopal as a tragedy that "still gnaws at our collective conscience" and guaranteed continued efforts in order to tackle the issues of drinking water and site decontamination.