Even Asaduddun Owaisi said that Yakub doesn’t deserve capital punishment as he had himself surrendered before the law.
The Supreme Court has rejected Yakub Memon’s plea against the dismissal of his curative petition and said that the same was disposed off rightly without any procedural lapse. The apex court also held that there was no lapse in the death warrant issued to Yakub Memon. The issuance of death warrant is in order and we do not find any kind of legal fallacy,” a bench comprising Justices Dipak Misra, Prafulla C Pant and Amitava Roy said. Maharashtra Governor C Vidyasagar Rao too rejected the mercy petition of Yakub Memon.
On the other hand, Muslim leaders are unhappy with the Supreme Court verdict. According to them, why should capital punishment be awarded to a person who himself came forward to surrender before the law. They said that injustice is being meted against Yakub.
Asaduddin Owaisi, President of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen said, “Only three persons have been convicted for Mumbai riots. Why did Tamilian parties defend the murderers of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi? Yakub had surrendered and had given a vital evidence against the involvement of ISI and Tiger Memom in the Mumbai blast incident. Even Ram Jethmalani, Shatrughan Sinha and Justice Katju had said that Yakub doesn’t deserve capital punishment. Police has been asking Muslim leaders to cooperate but they must ask people belonging to every religion to cooperate. Yakub lacks political backing hence he is being executed.”
“B Raman’s statement clearly shows that Yakub Memon had surrendered in Nepal and helped our intelligence agencies with vital information about ISI’s operations. His death penalty should be converted to life imprisonment as the senior R&AW officer had pleaded,” said Samajwadi Party state chief and MLA Abu Asim Azmi.
“Srikrishna Commission had made some vital recommendations for bringing the guilty of Mumbai 1992-93 riots to book but successive governments have kept it on the backburner. If Yakub Memon is being hanged for his role in the 1993 serial blasts, the guilty of the riots, which happened before the blasts, should also be brought to justice,” demanded All India Milli Council’s general secretary Maulana Mehmood Daryabadi.
Senior lawyer Ujjwal Nikam said, “Supreme Court has rejected petition (curative) filed by Yakub and dismissed all the contentions raised by him.”
Memon’s wife, Rahin, has left for Nagpur jail where she hopes to meet him one last time before his execution. “I have full faith in the judiciary, I have full faith in the Almighty,” Yakub’s brother Suleman said after the Supreme Court verdict.
Few days back, BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha, Ram Jethmalani, eminent jurists and persons from different walks of life had submitted a mercy petition to President Pranab Mukherjee requesting him to commute the death sentence of Yakub Memon. The signatories had claimed that there were “substantive and fresh grounds” that can be considered on merits.
In the 15-page petition, the signatories had cited various legal points and international commitments to argue that Memon should not be hanged.
“We most humbly request your Excellency to consider the case of Yakub Abdul Razak Memon and spare him from the noose of death for a crime that was master-minded by someone else to communally divide the country.”
“Grant of mercy in this case will send out a message that while this country will not tolerate acts of terrorism, as a nation we are committed to equal application of the power of mercy and values of forgiveness, and justice. Blood letting and human sacrifice will not make this country a safer place; it will, however, degrade us all,” the signatories said.
Besides Sinha and Jethmalani, those, who had signed the petition include MPs like Mani Shankar Aiyar (Congress), Majeed Memon (NCP), Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M), D Raja (CPI), KT S Tulsi and HK Dua (nominated) and T Siva (DMK), former CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat, CPI(ML)-Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, Brinda Karat (CPI-M) and filmmakers and actors like Naseeruddin Shah and Mahesh Bhatt, MK Raina and Tushar Gandhi.
It also included various academicians, members of the legal fraternity, activists and retired judges – Justice Panachand Jain, Justice H S Bedi, Justice PB Sawant, Justice H Suresh, Justice KP Siva Subramaniam, Justice SN Bhargava, Justice (retd) K Chandru, and Justice Nagmohan Das, noted lawyer Indira Jaising and academicians like Irfan Habib, Arjun Dev, DN Jha, and social activists Aruna Roy, Jean Dreze and John Dayal.
