The hectic drama witnessed around the apex court, which witnessed incessant media coverage through Wednesday night, prompted the government on Thursday to boost security measures around courts in the national capital. Memon left Mumbai just before the serial blasts in 1993 with his family. Since Yakub’s father Abdul Razzak and some other family members were buried at the Marine Lines cemetery, Yakub’s family has wished to perform his last rites there, another police officer said.
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The governor of the western state of Maharashtra, whose capital at the time of the bombings was still called Bombay, rejected an appeal for mercy, leaving the final say on Memon’s fate to President Mukherjee.
India on Thursday executed convicted bomb plotter Yakub Memon for his role in a series of coordinated attacks that killed hundreds of people in Mumbai in 1993, television stations reported. Memon’s father died during the long-running legal proceedings, three were acquitted and three others are serving life in prison, including Yakub’s sister-in-law Rubina Memon. He was sentenced to death shortly before 7 am after all his pleas seeking mercy was rejected until early in the morning. However, the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation said that he was arrested in New Delhi on August 5, 1994.
Critics question whether Memon’s death serves India’s larger interests, saying it sends the wrong message to potential collaborators with justice agencies.
“Full access to justice has been given to the convict”, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told India’s NDTV.
The Stock Exchange, the offices of national carrier Air India and a luxury hotel were among about a dozen targets of the blasts.
Indian prosecutors said the assaults were ordered by the local underworld in revenge for the demolition of a 16th century mosque in northern India by Hindu zealots.
Of them, many were history sheeters and anti-social elements. A total of 100 people have been convicted. The vast majority of the 100-150 death sentences handed down each year are eventually commuted to life in prison.
“You must understand that at some point of time, some finality has to come”. Police were also stationed at the various places in the city where the bombs had exploded.
He tweeted that he is saddened by the news that our government has hanged a human being.
Afzal was convicted of conspiracy in the December 2001 attack on Parliament and was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court in 2004.
Meanwhile, safety has been tightened outdoors the fear assault convict’s Mumbai residence following his execution. In an appeal to maintain peace and harmony to ensure law and order in Maharashtra, Fadnavis exercised caution as he made the statement on Memon’s death sentence after the funeral was over.
For almost a decade, India had an unofficial moratorium on executions.
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On November 21, 2012, Ajmal Kasab, the only terrorist to have survived the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, was hanged in Pune’s Yerwada Jail.
