A last minute plea for a stay of execution for Yakub Memon, convicted of plotting bomb attacks in Mumbai that killed 257, was rejected by India’s president on Wednesday night, local media reported.
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Mumbai: The death warrant of 1993 serial blasts convict Yakub Memon was executed after completing necessary judicial procedures and he had exhausted all available legal and constitutional remedies, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis told the Assembly on Thursday. Hours before the death, in a pre-dawn session of the Supreme Court, Justices Dipak Misra, Prafulla Chandra Pant and Amitava Roy heard Memon’s last plea for a 14-day stay on his execution to mentally prepare himself and meet with family.
Srinagar, July 30 An independent lawmaker in Kashmir on Thursday criticised the hanging of 1993 Mumbai serial blasts convict Yakub Memon and termed his execution as “a selective one that smacks of communal bias”.
Memon was accused of being the “driving spirit” behind the dozen or so blasts that ripped through India’s financial capital Mumbai on 13 March 1993.
His lawyers had argued that executions can only be carried out after seven days have passed following the rejection of a mercy petition.
Former Supreme Court judge Harjit Singh Bedi had also said reports that Memon co-operated with investigators and returned voluntarily from Pakistan, where he fled, should have been taken into account when hearing his appeal.
He denied any involvement in the blasts, during a staggered trial and appeal process that bitterly divided opinion in India and led to calls from rights activists and an ex-judge for his life to be spared. The attacks were seen as revenge for the demolition of a medieval mosque in northern India by Hindu nationalists.
Prominent citizens, including retired Supreme Court judges, had urged President Pranab Mukerjee to commute Memon’s sentence to life in prison. Out of the 11 people involved in the crime, only Memon was hanged to death, the others were sentenced to life imprisonment. “Complete access to justice was given to Yakub Memon for the last 22 years”.
His brother, Tiger Memon, and Dawood Ibrahim, both underworld dons and the masterminds of the attack, remain missing.
Police had banned the body being taken in a procession as part of security and law and order steps. “Justice has been done and the Supreme Court must be saluted”, Rohatgi said.
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Prior to Afzal, Aamir Ajmal Kasab, the sole surviving Pakistani gunman involved in the Mumbai terror attacks which left 166 people dead in November, 2008, was hanged to death at Yerwada central prison in Pune, also in Maharashtra state, on November 21, 2012, in an operation shrouded in secrecy. Problem is death penalty in principle and practice, ” he said.
