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INDIA: YAKUB MEMON EXECUTED FOR 1993 MUMBAI BOMBINGS
July 30, 2015: A little over 22 years after the Mumbai bombings that killed 257 people in 1993, the lone convict on death row in the case – Yakub Abdul Razak Memon – was hanged at the Central Prison in the city of Nagpur.
Yakub Memon was sent to the gallows – on his 54th birthday – after several of his court appeals and clemency petitions were rejected by various courts, including the Supreme Court that rejected his last-minute petition seeking stay of execution.
The bombings, a carefully coordinated series of a dozen explosions across the city, stunned India because of their level of sophistication and their unprecedented carnage. In addition to the dead, more than 700 people were injured and several neighborhoods were left in smoking ruins.
According to prosecutors, Yakub Memon was the bomb plot’s indispensable middleman, the one who arranged financing, made travel plans, stockpiled weapons and bought vehicles for car bombs. Of all those who have been convicted of crimes related to the bombings, including the men who planted the bombs, Memon is the only defendant to be executed.
As is the norm in India, journalists were not allowed to witness the execution, which was carried out at the Central Prison in the city of Nagpur. Under prison procedures, the condemned is typically offered a bath, a final meal, fresh clothes and a chance to pray before going to the gallows.
Although death sentences are routinely imposed in India, actual executions are rare. Yakub Memon was only the fifth person executed in India since 1995. The last death row inmate to be executed in India was Afzal Guru in 2013. The execution took place amid tightened security, especially in towns and cities with large Muslim populations. The security measures reflected official concern that the execution of Memon, a Muslim in a predominantly Hindu nation, could serve as a flash point for religious strife and score-settling – the same dynamic present in the Mumbai bombings. (Sources: nytimes.com and manoramaonline.com, 30/07/2015)
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