Yakub Memon to be hanged today on his 53rd birthday

LAHORE: Sentenced to death on July 27, 2007 for his alleged involvement in the March 1993 Bombay bombings by the Justice PD Kode-led Special Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Court, Yakub Memon is scheduled to be hanged on Thursday (today) on his 53rd birthday after his appeals against the verdict have already been rejected by the Indian Supreme Court and his mercy petition has been declined by the country’s President.
The March 12, 1993 (Friday) incident was first of its kind serial-bomb-blasts across the world. The 13 vehicle bomb explosions in a single day had resulted in over 350 fatalities and 1,200 injuries.
Memon has served more than 20 years in prison since his arrest and his trial took some 14 years to complete.
According to the July 26, 2015 edition of the “Times of India,” numerous legal experts like former Indian Supreme Court judge Justice Markandey Katju, Ram Jethmalani, KTS Tulsi, parliamentarians including Shatrughan Sinha, Sitaram Yechury, D Raja, HK Dua and T Siva (DMK), filmmakers and actors like Naseeruddin Shah, Mahesh Bhatt, retired judges including Justice Panachand Jain, Justice HS Bedi, Justice PB Sawant, Justice H Suresh, Justice KP Siva Subramaniam, Justice SN Bhargava, Justice K. Chandru, Justice Nagmohan Das and noted lawyer Indira Jaising etc have petitioned President Pranab Mukherjee to grant pardon to Yakub Memon by reconsidering his mercy plea.
It is imperative to note that Indian President Pranab Mukherjee had rejected Memon’s clemency petition on April 11, 2014.
The July 26, 2015 edition of the “Times of India” has reported that while the Apex Court had used this long period of incarceration as a mitigating circumstance to commute the death sentences of the other 10 co-accused persons, it applied a different yardstick to Yakub.
The top Indian newspaper had gone on to quote Justice Katju and other eminent jurists as contending: “The Supreme Court has repeatedly held

that lengthy incarceration during pendency of appeal in death cases is a significant mitigating circumstance which ought to be considered in determination of sentence. Hanging Yakub would be a gross travesty of justice. After carefully studying the judgment of the court he found that the evidence on which Yakub was found guilty was “very weak.” This evidence is retracted confession of the co-accused and alleged recoveries.”
On March 21, 2013 the Indian Supreme Court had confirmed Yakub Memon’s conviction and death sentence for conspiracy through financing the attacks.
Memon had then filed a review petition, but on July 30, 2013, on his 51st birthday, the Indian Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice BS Chauhan had rejected the application for oral hearing.
In June 2014, he had filed yet another petition that that review of death penalties should be heard in an open court rather than in chambers. And on April 9 this year, the Indian Supreme Court had again dismissed Yakub Memon’s plea.
But Memon still had some hope left in him. He had gone on to file a curative petition before the Supreme Court, which was rejected on July 21, 2015.
Yakub Memon, a Chartered Accountant by profession, is the younger brother of Ibrahim Mushtaq Abdul Razak Nadim Memon (born 1960), who reportedly happens to be a close associate of the globally-known underworld don, Dawood Ibrahim.
Both Tiger Memon and Dawood Ibrahim, the prime suspects in the 1993 Bombay bombings, are yet to be arrested and are still at large.
Yakub Memon had enrolled at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India in 1986 and become a certified chartered accountant four years later in 1990.
His firm Messrs “Mehta and Memon Associates” was handling Income Tax, sales tax, audit and accounts management of over 200 clients. The very recent July 29, 2015 edition of the “Indian Express,” has stated: “An average student, Memon scored 70 per cent in the state secondary board exams and went on to complete his Masters in Commerce from Burhani College of Commerce & Arts, even as his elder brother, Ibrahim Memon alias Tiger, was making his mark in the Mumbai underworld.”
“The Indian Express” has written: “Memon, however, claimed that he did not know about his brother’s dealings.”
According to various other reputed Indian media outlets, days before the 1993 Bombay blasts, Memon and his family had left the city. His family had first moved to Dubai and then to Pakistan. Yakub Memon, however, had returned back home 18 months later. The Indian CBI had claimed that he had been arrested from the New Delhi Railway Station on August 5, 1994, though Yakub Memon had stated publicly he had willingly gave himself up in Nepal on July 28, 1994.