BHOPAL: Keshub Mahindra, former chairman of the Union Carbide of India Ltd (UCIL) says he did not know if the lethal MiC (methyl-iso-cyanate) gas leaked from the Bhopal plant of his company in the intervening night of December 2-3, 1984.

He, along with seven other officials of the company, accused in the case filed by the CBI, produced themselves in the court of chief judicial magistrate A K Gupta (CJM) for examination on Monday and Tuesday. This is for the first time in the 18-year history of the legal battle that these top officials of the UCIL presented themselves before the court in Bhopal.

Company chairman Warren Anderson, the main accused, however, remains absconding.

Other officials-Carbide’s MD Vijay Gokhale, vice president K S Kamdar and production manager S P Chaudhary-all denied having any knowledge of the leakage of the poisonous gas from the plant that killed thousands of Bhopalites in their sleep. Others who were interrogated include J Mukund, K B Shetty, Shakil Qureshi and A K Shrivastava.

The court had framed over 40 questions based on the statement of the prosecution of the witnesses in the case and the accused were examined in that light.

The questions ranged from the non-observance of safety norms, company’s failure to apprise the people, local administration and the staff, chaos created by the leakage, the reasons of the gas leak, implications of the leak and its possible antidote etc.

But surprisingly, all the top, responsible officials who headed the company gave a tutored and stock reply that they had no knowledge about it. “I don’t know” was the common reply that they gave to the court.

And even as the accused were being examined in the court, hundreds of gas victims, led by NGOs, demonstrated outside the court here.