Yakub Memon’s execution, sorry as the spectacle may look, has managed to throw light on these vexed issues that confront the Indian political and judicial class. And while media was gagged, the funeral was captured on scores of cellphone cameras.
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Security was tight near the targets and at sensitive areas across Mumbai on Thursday, with heavily armed police outside Memon’s former home and at a cemetery where the body was taken for burial late in the afternoon.
The protesters carrying banners and placards reading, “Who Among Muslims Is To Be Hanged Next” with the pictures of Yakoob Menon and Muhammad Afzal Guroo while denounced the execution of Menon said that it was a cold blooded murder and the execution was unwarranted and unjustified.
Hundreds of students and faculty members of Kashmir university also organised funeral prayers for both Memon and Tehrik-e-Taliban Afghanistan chief Mullah Omar within the campus after congregational Friday prayers at a nearby mosque. The fact is courts has also very circumspect while awarding death sentence to anyone. “Supreme Court has made a tragic mistake”, he said.
Amnesty global and Human Rights Watch criticised the execution, saying there is no evidence that the death penalty deters terrorists, and saying it was time India abolished it. “But the same determination should be shown for other cases as well to maintain unity and sovereignty of the country”, CPI (M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said on Thursday. “On the contrary, a man like Yakub Memon who trusted the Indian state faced plain betrayal”, Malik told The Citizen. “Those questioning it are trying to undermine the process of law, it is mischievous and irrational”, Mittal said.
“Yakub was hanged because of the Mumbai blasts, but then what action has been taken against those responsible for the communal violence in Mumbai and elsewhere after the Babri Masjid demolition”, the CPI(M) leader asked. More than 1000 Muslims were killed in Mumbai and over 2000 in Gujrat-all of them Muslims-by Hindu rioters.
“But, the President and the Supreme Court did not listen to them and dismissed their petitions keeping the sentiments of the country in mind”, the Sena said in an editorial in party mouthpiece “Saamana”. “He was convicted for a heinous crime where over 200 people were killed”. In this case, the Supreme Court had earlier confirmed the death sentence of the death row convict.
One of India’s lengthiest trials, which included 686 witness testimonies that filled 13,000 pages, opened on June 6, 1995, and ended in January 2003. Police were also stationed at the various places in the city where the bombs had exploded.
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Amnesty India described the execution as “cruel and inhuman”.
