He was executed inside a prison in western India where he had been incarcerated since 1994.
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Memon was convicted by a specially designated court under the draconian Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, which was promulgated immediately after the 1993 bomb blasts. Late last night, Bhushan assisted Memon’s lawyers, who changed strategy and rushed to the residence Chief Justice of India H L Dattu and petitioned him for an urgent hearing to stay the hanging.
The earlier two executions were conducted in extreme secrecy and announced only after the fact.
Mumbai has been converted into a fortress as Memon’s body was being taken to the city from Nagpur jail, where he was executed.
Dismissing the argument that 1993 Mumbai blasts convict Yakub Memon’s execution ought to have been stalled by 14 days after the rejection of his mercy plea, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi on Thursday stated had that occurred, it might have been against the “spirit of the regulation”. In India, several judges in 2012, called for commutation of 13 death sentences saying they were erroneously upheld by the Supreme Court. “India should adopt his message, and end the use of the death penalty for retribution”, she added. However, the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation said that he was arrested in New Delhi on August 5, 1994.
Memon’s lawyer Annad Grover termed the court’s decision “a tragic mistake”.
As Yakub Memon was hanged this morning after a long-stretched process involving country’s top court and politicians, mixed reactions have started pouring in from all corners of the world.
“There’s no question of victory. I’ve just done my job”.
The serial blasts targeting a dozen sites, including the Bombay Stock Exchange, the offices of Air India and a luxury hotel, killed 257 people.
The mosque attack brought months of deadly riots across the nation with 900 people killed, majority Muslims, and it marked the rise of popular Hindu nationalism, as the Monitor reported this week. The others were sentenced to life imprisonment.
“You must understand that at some point of time, some finality has to come”. Despite opposition from human rights activists, the Supreme Court gave the go ahead on the hanging and it was carried out earlier today. The Supreme Court, in a binding judgment in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab in 1980 laid down that the death penalty could only be granted in the “rarest of rare” cases but evidence from court rulings in the last three decades show that the
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Meanwhile, interesting data has emerged suggesting that despite its informal moratorium, India did not stop handing out death sentences.
