Yakub Memon moves South Carolina, seeks stay on his hanging

In his petition, Memon said that a lower court’s death warrant is illegal as all the legal remedies available to him under the law have not been exhausted and that he has also approached the Maharastra Governor with a plea for mercy.

Though a petition was filed for delay of execution of memon, the court rejected the plea and the hanging would now take place.

Yakub’s family has been claiming that it was his faith in the judiciary that made him surrender.

The apex court on July 21 had rejected Memon’s curative petition saying that it was void of merit.

On Friday, the home department of Maharashtra government sanctioned Rs 22 lakh by issuing a government resolution to install an overhead grill-ceiling at the “hanging yard” cell in Nagpur prison in view of Memon’s likely execution.

Yakub wrote these words in a neat cursive hand, showing his good command over English. He also pleaded the execution be stopped in the wake of his fresh clemency plea before the Maharashtra governor. Both matters will be heard together.

There are a total number of 193 accused in the case out of which 35 are absconding. No less than 100 of the accused have been convicted and 48 of them were found guilty of conspiracy.

He and two of his brothers were convicted in 2006 by a specially designated court using controversial anti-terror legislation that was introduced after the 1993 bomb blasts and is no longer on the statute books.

A study conducted by the National Law University, Delhi and the Law Commission, has come out with some revealing figures although there has always been a lurking suspicion of the trend.

This is an excerpt from an essay written by 1993 Mumbai blasts convict Yakub Memom who is likely to be hanged to death on July 30. They expect mercy. Watch video here to know more!

The study, first of is kind in India, analyzed data relating to 373 death row convicts over a period of 15 years.

Quashing the death warrant, the court had held that the “Right to live under Article 21 does not end with the confirmation of the of the death sentence by the Supreme Court”.

The apex court by its March 21, 2013 verdict uphold his death sentence while commuting the death sentence of ten others (one having died subsequently) to life imprisonment. There is also a debate raging over whether the death penalty should be completely scrapped because of its irreversible and retributive nature.