Yakub Memon, convicted in 1993 Mumbai blasts has been hanged

India rarely executes prisoners on death row. “Under these circumstances, his sentence should have been commuted”, he said.

The earlier two executions were conducted in extreme secrecy and announced only after the fact.

Authorities in Nagpur have barred people from assembling outside the jail and beefed up security in sensitive areas in Mumbai.

Yakub Memon – the 1993 Mumbai blasts convict – was hanged at Nagpur Central Jail on Thursday morning.

Accordingly, there was no live telecast of the funeral procession or the last rites following the 13-hour gag order issued by Deputy Commissioner of Police (Operations) Sanjay Barkund, which will end at Thursday midnight.

Memom died on his 53rd birthday.

Soon after the body reached the Bada Qabrastan, a special “namaz-e-janaza” (funeral prayer) was offered and later it was buried besides the graves of his parents and other family members.

“But what punishment do you give a man who helped murder hundreds of innocent people?” a subsequent post read. India’s attorney general argued Memon was misusing the justice system by filing repeated mercy petitions.

Social media was abuzz with clashing comments on the deep division on Memon’s case and the death penalty more widely. However, the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation said that he was arrested in New Delhi on August. 5, 1994.

Former Supreme Court judge Harjit Singh Bedi had said the Supreme Court should take notice of reports that Memon had cooperated with investigators and returned voluntarily from Pakistan, where he fled after the blasts.

“There’s no question of victory”.

On 12 March 1993, bombs tore through several sites in Mumbai – then known as Bombay – including the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The attacks were seen as revenge for the demolition of a medieval mosque in northern India by Hindu nationalists.

Others pointed out that his brother Tiger Memon was alleged to have masterminded the attacks, along with Mumbai gang boss Dawood Ibrahim. A total of 100 people have been convicted of involvement in the blasts.

The 1993 attacks were followed by the lengthiest trials in India’s history, with 686 witnesses giving testimonies, which filled 13,000 pages. The judgments began in late 2006. This led to the Indian Police to the Memon family’s residence in Mumbai, where keys to the RDX-laden scooters were found. He tweeted that he is saddened by the news that “our government has hanged a human being”.

“I’m not commenting on the merits of a specific case: that’s for the Supreme Court to decide”. But it has carried out only three executions in the last decade, all in terrorism cases. That ended in November 2012 with the execution of Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving gunman in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.