Yakub Memon, younger brother of the 1993 Mumbai blast prime accused Tiger Memon and a convict in the case himself, will be hanged in Nagpur jail on July 30. The decision came after multiple mercy petitions and appeals by Memon, challenging the death sentence were rejected.
The Supreme Court had already rejected his plea against the death penalty awarded by a special TADA court, saying there was no ground for interference. Later his mercy petition was rejected by President Pranab Mukherjee who directed the Maharashtra government to decide on the date of execution in May 2014.
The black day
The serial blasts which rocked the city of Mumbai in 1993, left 257 people dead and around 700 injured. The audacious attack carried out with the involvement of crime lord Dawood Ibrahim and his henchmen was one of the worst in the history of India.
Who is Yakub Memon?
Yakub Memon is a chartered accountant who owned an export firm in Mumbai and handled finances of his brother Tiger’s illegal activities including silver smuggling. Later he was found guilty of handling and distributing funds for the blast and also funding the training of 15 men who were involved in the blast. The Memon family left Mumbai in the days surrounding the horrendous events. The Memon family was once called the first family of terror in India.
The arrest
Yakub Memon’s arrest has always been a controversial subject with varying versions. The police version shows that Yakub Memon was officially arrested at New Delhi railway station, while on the other hand Yakub Memon alleges that he was arrested at Kathmandu airport for possession of multiple visas and later handed over to Indian police who brought him to New Delhi.
His family members who were later brought back to India from Pakistan via Dubai said that Yakub had surrendered himself to the police. There were also reports of a deal gone sour between Yakub and the CBI, but nothing substantial came out. Yakub Memon was the first to blow the lid off Pakistani involvement in the terrorist attack.
Sentenced to death
The death penalty for Yakub Memon came as a surprise with many saying that it was unusual even under TADA to award death sentence to a conspirator. But on the whole many agreed that it was justified if this was taken as a rarest of rare case. Yakub’s appeals were based on this very argument that he never directly took part in execution of the attacks and was convicted as a conspirator. When the judgement was announced in 2007 Yakub Memon created a scene in the courtroom, when he rushed out of the courtroom in a fit of rage.
While the remaining ten death sentences in the case were commuted to life imprisonment, Yakub Memon’s last resort is a curative petition slated for a July 21 hearing before the Supreme Court.
