It ended in November 2012, with the execution of Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving gunman in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.
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Hurriyat said that the hanging of the Yakub Mamon has reopened the wounds of the Kashmiri nation and today the memories of the Shaheed Mohammad Maqbool Bhat and Mohammad Afzal Gooru are badly striking our hearts and minds who were hanged for no crime and whose dead bodies too were denied to their families.
While Babu Bajrangi and Maya Kodnani are accused in the Gujarat riots, Col. Prasad Shrikant Purohit and Swami Aseemanand are accused in the Malegaon blast.
“Memon has been hanged, and now government should take firm steps to ensure that no efforts are made to project him as innocent or martyr before the people”, the Sena demanded.
“Law Commission Chairman Justice A.P. Shah (retd) also said there is a serious need to re-examine the issue of death penalty since there are several inconsistencies in the system, which led to arbitrariness and discrimination in the imposition of death penalty“, Raja added.
Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the views were that of the leaders concerned and not of the Congress. “All right thinking secular people must support Teesta”.
It said the Supreme Court had itself admitted errors and miscarriage of justice due to arbitrary application of death penalty. “He could have told the chief minister (of the state) or he could have sent a message to him”, Chatterjee said.
“Justice has been done; this increased the people’s faith in the judicial process”.
Memon and two of his brothers were convicted in 2006 by a specially-designated court using controversial anti-terror legislation that was introduced after the 1993 attacks and is no longer on the statute books.
Yakub Abdul Razzak Memon, convicted in the March 12, 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, was hanged till death at Maharashtra’s Nagpur central jail on Thursday morning. He said that the execution of prominent liberation leader, Shaheed Muhammad Maqbool Butt was also carried in the same dubious way by the then Prime Minister Indra Gandhi just days after the murder of Indian ambassador in UK Mr Marthur.
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More than a “Muslim” victim, Yakub has been a victim of a culture that did not provide any space for a surrender or plea bargain to a terrorist.
