Mumbai: India’s Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to stop the hanging of Yakub Memon, convicted in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts, and in all likelihood he will go to the gallows on Thursday 7am at Nagpur Central Prison where he is being held.
Memon is only banking on his mercy plea submitted to the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, for the second time and if rejected will certainly be the end of the road for the convict, who will be among the first to be hanged among the ten death row convicts in the 1993 blasts case.
The Union Home Ministry was reviewing his plea on Wednesday.
The 13 serial bomb blasts across Mumbai claimed the lives of 257 people and seriously injured more than 700. The chief conspirators in the blasts were fugitives Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon, who is the elder brother of Yakub.
The Memon family fled India for Pakistan two days before the bomb blasts took place, but Yakub left the neighbouring country in 1994 and was arrested in Nepal.
He was held at Arthur Road jail in Mumbai until he was convicted in 2007 and given a death sentence by the TADA (Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act) court. Memon later moved to Nagpur prison.
Memon has been trying to use all legal options to commute the death sentence to life, and also appealed for mercy, but almost all the possible avenues have been exhausted, except the one before the President.
In New Delhi, former West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi has appealed to the President to reconsider Memon’s mercy petition as a “fitting tribute” to the late and former President A.P.J. Kalam.
On Wednesday afternoon, Maharashtra Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao rejected his mercy petition submitted on July 21 within hours of the apex court rejecting his curative petition.
Ever since the death warrant was announced, there has been a vigorous debate in the media as to whether Memon should face the death penalty and that India should put an end to capital punishment altogether.
Several jurists, politicians, retired judges and activists had sought mercy for Yakub since he had given ample evidence pointing to Pakistan’s role in the blasts and seeing as he had already spent more than 20 years in jail.
But families of those who died in the 1993 blasts have been quietly expressing their sorrow and trauma that they suffered for 22 years and yet found no justice to their pain.
On Wednesday, one victim, Tushar Deshmukh, who lost his mother when he was 13 in the 1993 blasts, went around asking people why Memon should not be hanged on Thursday.
Presenting a memorandum to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis at Vidhan Bhavan, the legislative assembly, here, he said, “The families have suffered. We demand that the death sentence be carried out.
“I have signatures of 1,600 people given in just two hours who all want Yakub to be hanged,” he said.
He also gave a letter to the Maharashtra governor also and planned to give the signatures to the President of India.
On hearing the news of the apex court’s order, he said he was relieved.
Meanwhile, the Maharashtra government has been making ample security arrangements for Memon’s hanging at Nagpur jail. The state government had recently sanctioned Rs2.2 million (Dh126,563) for tight security preparations and issued a government resolution. The funds are being utilised to erect a ceiling over the gallows.
The Indian Express on Wednesday reported a senior official stating, “The ceiling is being created possibly because of factors like rain, which could make the hanging rope slippery and also due to the possibilities of the event being captured on camera by using latest technology such as drones or satellite imagery.”
