Today morning the whole world woke with a peace knowing that the sole convict on the death row of the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, Yakub Memon was hanged.
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Memon, a former accountant, was convicted of plotting a series of co-ordinated bomb attacks that rocked India’s financial capital Mumbai in March 1993, killing 257 people and injuring around 700 more.
The Bombay Stock Exchange, the offices of Air India and a luxury hotel were among about a dozen targets of the March 1993 attack, which killed hundreds of people in India, according to reports.
Even after the rejection of mercy petition by the President, Memon filed another mercy petition himself on July 21, the day when his curative petition was dismissed.
“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.
Prison officials said Memon’s last wish to talk his daughter was fulfilled hours before the hanging.
A few of India’s prominent politicians, social activists, journalists and lawyers had urged President Pranab Mukherjee to commute Memon’s sentence.
“I only hope that Yakub Memon will have a dignified death”, he said. The attacks were seen as revenge for the demolition of a medieval mosque in northern India by Hindu nationalists.
The Maharashtra government actively kept tabs on the internet and social media to ensure that hate messages on platforms like Twitter and Whatsapp did not stir up passions, besides maintaining a close vigil on the law and order situation in connection with Yakub Memon’s execution.
At the end of the longest-running terror trial (in India) on July 27, 2007, Yakub was convicted by the Mumbai-based TADA Court of the offence of criminal conspiracy, causing the act of terror.
Jail administration handed over Yakub’s body to his elder brother, Suleiman and cousin, Usman Memon, around 9.30 am after the family gave an undertaking that they would not hold demonstrations with the body and ensure a quiet burial in Mumbai.
Police consider Memon’s brother, “Tiger” Memon, and mafia boss Dawood Ibrahim to be the overall masterminds behind the attacks. But there are debates on how to define that and the only executions in recent years have been of convicted terrorists.
Raman was “disturbed” that the prosecution failed notify the court of “mitigating circumstances” under which Memon cooperated and persuaded other members of his family to leave Pakistan and surrender to Indian authorities and said he was concerned that the intelligence agencies had reneged on its promises.
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Earlier, Parliament attack convict Mohamammed Afzal Guru was hanged at Tihar jail here on February 9, 2013.
