Mumbai: Yakub Abdul Razak Memon, the sole death row convict in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case, today moved the Supreme Court seeking stay of execution of his death sentence scheduled for July 30.
In the petition filed in the Supreme court, Memon (53) has said that the order given out for hanging him is illegal because proper procedure was not followed. According to his lawyers, his death warrant should not have been issued before he had exhausted all his legal options.
He is also said to have approached the Maharashtra Governor with a plea for mercy. But this request was rejected a three-judge bench of the Supreme court on Tuesday. Memon had said in his petition that he was suffering from schizophrenia since 1996, and had been in jail for nearly 20 years.
International human rights NGO Amnesty has said that Supreme Court’s rejection of Memon’s mercy plea is a disappointing and a regressive step. “Lawmakers in India often find it convenient to hold up capital punishment as a symbol of their resolve to tackle crime, and choose to ignore more difficult and effective solutions like improving investigations, prosecutions and care for victims’ families,”said Divya Iyer, Research Manager at Amnesty International India.
Yakub Memon, a chartered accountant by profession, was living in Pakistan and is said to have returned to India in 1994 to prove his innocence and clear his family name that was marred after Investigations after the blast revealed that Yakub’s brother Tiger Memon and Dawood Ibrahim were the masterminds of the attacks. The Indian authorities have not been able to catch them and they are suspected to be living in Pakistan. Following this, Yakub said that he surrendered to the police to cooperate with the investigation. The police said that was not true, and that they had arrested him.
He was subsequently convicted and sentenced to death in 2007 by a special terrorism court in Mumbai for financing the attacks, and for arranging the training of assailants who carried out the plan. Thirteen deadly bombs had gone off around Mumbai, including at the Bombay Stock exchange, on March 12, 1993. 257 people were killed, and over 700 injured in the explosions. He was later sentenced to be hanged to death on July 30 after being convicted of these crimes by the Supreme Court.
Earlier Reports:
Yakub to be hanged as court dismisses petition
Terrorist Yakub Memon likely to be hanged on July 30th
