This was the Union Carbide Guest House in Bhopal at the time of the 1984 gas disaster. Photo:  Lalit Shastri

Lalit Shastri

Standing on top of Shamla hill, overlooking the picturesque Upper Lake of Bhopal are buildings that once housed the Union Carbide guest house and research center. Thirty-four years after the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster, these structures have become a grim reminder of how the local authorities had given the primacy of place to a multinational company and when disaster struck on the midnight of 2 and 3 December 1984 the contraption was allowed to get away with what Bhopal citizens called “mass murder” – a charge that eventually got reduced to death by negligence and culpable homicide not amounting to murder