Yakub Memon, convicted for helping plan and execute the serial blasts in Mumbai in 1993, has appealed again to the Supreme Court to stop his hanging, scheduled for July 30. His wife visited him in jail in Nagpur today.
Nearly 260 people were killed when 12 bombs exploded Mumbai, including landmarks like the Bombay Stock Exchange and a popular cinema. Memon is the only person to be condemned to death for the attack.
His last-minute appeal against capital punishment was rejected by the top court just two days ago.
The 53-year-old’s new petition says the death warrant – which orders his hanging – issued recently, is illegal because it didn’t follow proper procedure. His lawyers said the warrant was issued before he exhausted all legal options available to him, which is against the rules. When the order for his hanging was decided, he had not appealed to the Supreme Court with a curative petition – where a death row prisoner asks the top court to review its own judgement against the convict.
Yakub Memon’s brother, underworld don Tiger Memon, and Dawood Ibrahim are the masterminds of the Mumbai attacks and remain missing. Yakub Memon, a trained chartered accountant, returned to India in 1994, protesting his innocence. He said he had surrendered to cooperate with the investigation; but officials said he had been arrested.
He was then convicted in 2007 by a Mumbai court for financing the terror attack and arranging for the training of terrorists in Pakistan. The death sentence given to him was upheld by higher courts in later years.
