A leading human rights organisation today renewed its call for India to abolish death penalty after it executed 1993 Mumbai blast convict Yakub Memon, saying there is no evidence that the “cruel” form of punishment acts as a deterrent.
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Memon, who had spent more than two decades in jail, was hanged on his 53rd birthday in the western state of Maharashtra after the last-minute appeal by lawyers failed to save him.
Security was tightened near the targets in Mumbai on Thursday.
Indian courts routinely hand down death penalties for serious offences but they are rarely carried out.
President Pranab Mukherjee rejected Yakub Memon’s mercy petition sent to him on Wednesday.
“Staying of Memon’s death warrant, issued by a lower court on April 30, would be travesty of justice”, the court said, while rejecting his appeal around 5 a.m. local time after a two-hour hearing, paving the way for his hanging as scheduled. “Only miracle can save me”, 1993 Mumbai blast convict Yakub Memon told a home guard who was posted near his barrack on Wednesday morning.
Amnesty India said before Yakub’s execution it was disappointed by the decision to go ahead with the hangings.
A Mumbai Special Court had sentenced him to death in July 2007.
In a dramatic sequence of events, a Supreme Court panel held an unprecedented hearing in the early hours of Thursday, before rejecting Memon’s last-ditch plea for a 14-day delay in execution.
Ten Pakistani Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists had swooped on India’s financial capital Mumbai on November 26, 2008 and unleashed mayhem, targeting numerous city’s landmarks, and killing166 people, including some foreigners.
Undoubtedly, the developments in this case over the years and the ultimate judgment will serve to constitute a significant portion of India’s judicial history. After about 90 minutes of court proceedings, the judges rejected Memon’s appeal and he was hanged in Nagpur Central Jail a little before 7am.
Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said 100 of 123 suspects were convicted for their roles in the bombings, one of the longest-running trials of a terrorism case in the country.
The only well-educated member of the Memon family was found guilty of criminal conspiracy, arranging money for buying vehicles used by the bombers and organising air tickets to Dubai for some of them.
March 12, 1993: A series of bomb blasts rock Mumbai, killing in 257 people and injuring 713.
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“The senior officer in-charge of the operation himself wrote that death sentence was not correct”, Karat said, referring to the late B. Raman, a former Research and Analysis Wing official, who favored clemency for Memon for cooperating with and helping the officials in their investigation. Yakub’s brother, Suleiman Memon, and cousin Usman, was not seen.
