India hangs convict in 1993 Mumbai blasts
Print Edition
Ignoring pleas and petitions by civil society groups, India yesterday hanged an accountant convicted of supporting the 1993 Mumbai bombings that killed 257 people in the country’s worst terrorist attack.
The police barred media from publishing images of Yakub Abdul Razak Memon’s funeral, apparently fearing a backlash against the execution that many said was driven by politics.
Executions are rare in India and in the last decade only two others have taken place, both of terror convicts like Memon.
The earlier two executions were conducted in secrecy and announced only after the fact. Their bodies were not handed to their families, but were buried inside prison compounds.
Memon’s body was handed to his family and the police order banning media photos and video appeared at the last minute. Journalists were informed only through Whatsapp after the funeral procession started. And while media was gagged, the funeral was captured on scores of cellphone cameras.
Memon, 53, was executed inside the prison in western India where he had been incarcerated since 1994. His family took his body to Mumbai from Nagpur hours later, and thousands of people gathered outside the cemetery for the funeral amid tight security.
His lawyers had mounted a last-ditch effort to save him, including arguments at the Supreme Court just two hours before he was hanged.
Prominent citizens, including retired Supreme Court judges, had urged President Pranab Mukerjee to commute Memon’s sentence to life in prison. That appeal reflected both opposition to the death penalty as well as fresh claims by his lawyers that he freely surrendered to Indian authorities, and that his direct links to the bombings had not been sufficiently established.
“I have exhausted my remedies,” lawyer Anand Grover told reporters after the Supreme Court heard Memon’s final plea. “I only hope that Yakub Memon will have a dignified death.”
Memon was convicted in 2007 of helping raise funds for the blasts that struck the Bombay Stock Exchange, Air India offices, a state transport office, three hotels, a gas station and a theater over two hours on March 12, 1993. The attacks were seen as revenge for the demolition of a medieval mosque in northern India by Hindu nationalists.
The demolition sparked religious riots in many parts of the country, leaving over 800 people dead, most of them Muslims.
Yakub’s older brother Ibrahim — also known as “Tiger” Memon — and Dawood Ibrahim, both leading gangsters in Mumbai in the 1990s, are the main suspects in the bombings and have fled the country. A total of 100 people have been convicted.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
