Memon: India executes plotter of 1993 Mumbai attacks

However, the Apex Court upheld the death sentence and Memon was hanged shortly after, on 30th July, 2015. The tailor said Muslims, who make up about 14 percent of India’s 1.2 billion people but a disproportionately large share of death row inmates, were “being targeted”.

Those who supported the execution said Memon had been convicted of financing a huge terror attack, and pointed to the anguish of the families who lost members in the killings.

Rights group Amnesty global called the hanging “another disheartening use of the death penalty in India”.

The Supreme Court’s refusal to stay execution of Yakub Memon today drew sharp reactions from legal experts with some questioning the procedure adopted in the issuance of death warrant, while others, including victims of 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, hailing the verdict. With a range of tweets on the already controversial issue, Salman sparked an outrage amongst his fans, many people protested on Salman’s immature tweets.

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

Indian police officials stand guard outside the crematorium where the body of Yakub Memonwas buried in Mumbai.

The jail authorities declined a demand to hand over the body to Memon’s family and will go ahead with the burial at an isolated area inside the sprawling jail premises after the autopsy report is received.

Several journalists were informed only through Whatsapp after the funeral procession started. Meanwhile, security has been tightened outside the terror attack convict’s Mumbai residence following his execution. “Under these circumstances, his sentence should have been commuted”, he said.

Indian investigators, along with the main public prosecutor in the case, Ujjwal Nikam, say he was arrested in New Delhi.

An accountant by profession, Memon also filed a mercy petition before the Maharashtra government immediately after his curative petition was dismissed by the apex court last week.

Memon’s death sentence was decried by Indian politicians.

“There is no question of victory or elation”.

“Full access to justice has been given to the convict”, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told India’s NDTV.

The March 1993 blasts targeted a dozen sites, including the Bombay Stock Exchange, the offices of national carrier Air India and a luxury hotel.

Incensed by the demolition of Babri Masjid (Mosque) on December 6, 1992 in the northern Indian city of Ayodhya and the communal riots that followed (especially in Mumbai), silver smuggler Tiger Memon (Yakub’s elder brother), along with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, hatched a conspiracy for retaliation.

“Such an urgency is nowhere to be seen when it comes to cases relating to people involved in massacre of Muslims”.