India’s top court refuses to stay Memon’s execution

“The death sentence was not given to any religion, but to a person who was trying to execute the conspiracy of Pakistan”, he insisted.

NEW DELHI (AP) – Ignoring pleas and petitions by civil society groups, India on Thursday hanged an accountant convicted of supporting the 1993 Mumbai bombings that killed 257 people in the country’s worst terrorist attack.

Police consider Memon’s brother, “Tiger” Memon, and mafia boss Dawood Ibrahim to be the overall masterminds behind the attacks.

Memon’s senior counsels, Anand Grover and Yug Chowdhury, contended the authorities were “hell-bent” on executing him without giving him the right to challenge the rejection of his mercy petition by the President, insisting right to life of a condemned prisoner lasts till his last breath.

In this file photograph dated March 16, 1993, a double-decker bus passes the crater of a March 12 bomb blast, one of a series of bombs that rocked the western Indian port city of Mumbai.

The Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act lapsed after two years and was never revived, with activists accusing the government of using it to harass Muslims. “If you feel this was also rushed, then I think it should take 30 or 40 years for death sentences to be given”, he said. But it has carried out only three executions in the last decade, all in terrorism cases.

It was the year 2007 when most death sentences (186) were awarded, followed by 164 in 2005. “The time has come to end this debate once and for all by ascending to a moral position that there shall be no death penalty on the statute book”, it argues.

Indian prosecutors said the assaults were ordered by the local underworld in revenge for the demolition of a 16th century mosque in northern India by Hindu zealots.

The Maharashtra government actively kept tabs on the internet and social media to ensure that hate messages on platforms like Twitter and Whatsapp did not stir up passions, besides maintaining a close vigil on the law and order situation in connection with Yakub Memon’s execution. “He deserves to be hanged”, Ajmera said.

Security was tight near the targets and at sensitive areas across Mumbai today, with heavily armed police outside Memon’s former home and at a cemetery where the body was taken for burial late in the afternoon. As the body arrived, escorted by police vehicles, onlookers snapped pictures and peered from balconies. “The plea is dismissed”, said Justice Dipak Misra, writing the judgement for the bench.

Amid evidence that capital punishment has failed to serve as an effective deterrent against terror or crime, the objective of the Law Commission’s discussions was to recommend whether to retain the death penalty or modify the conditions under which it would be applied.

“If the culprits who instigated the riots that happened before the blasts had been nabbed, I would have not complained”, Iqbal said.