WORLD : India Targets Elusive Carbide Figure

BHOPAL, India — A court today declared Warren Anderson, the former chairman of Union Carbide Corp., an “absconding offender” in an effort to extradite him from the United States to face charges in the Bhopal gas leak, the world’s worst industrial disaster, in which more than 2,000 people died.

Chief Judicial Magistrate R. C. Mishra issued a warrant last Nov. 15 for Anderson’s arrest to answer homicide charges filed by the Indian government. Repeated summons have failed to bring Anderson to Bhopal, Indian government counsel U. S. Prasad told Mishra in requesting the former executive be declared an absconder. Mishra granted the request, which is designed to make it easier for the Indian government to initiate extradition proceedings. India and the United States do not have an extradition treaty, but individual extraditions are possible.