NEW DELHI // India’s supreme court on Wednesday dismissed a final appeal for mercy by the only person to be sentenced to death for a series of bombings in Mumbai in 1993, a day before he was due to be executed.
A three-judge panel rejected the last-minute petition, clearing the last judicial barrier to executing Yakub Memon just hours before he was due to be hanged in Nagpur jail on Thursday, his 53rd birthday.
The governor of Maharashtra state, whose capital is Mumbai, rejected an appeal for mercy, his office said. The fate of another plea for mercy submitted to Indian president Pranab Mukherjee was not immediately clear.
Memon was convicted as the “driving spirit” behind the blasts that killed at least 257 people at separate landmarks in the financial capital, including the Bombay Stock Exchange, a popular cinema and two crowded markets.
The case has aroused controversy because police considered Memon’s brother, “Tiger” Memon, and mafia don Dawood Ibrahim to be the main masterminds behind the attacks that avenged the destruction of an ancient mosque by Hindu zealots in 1992. Both remain in hiding.
Supporters say the death sentence is too harsh given he helped the investigating agencies crack India’s deadliest bomb attack case.
About 300 prominent citizens, including at least eight retired judges of the supreme court and the Delhi high court, have urged India’s president to commute Memon’s sentence to life in prison.
Yet some of the most ardent supporters of capital punishment are leaders of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
“Right now, it’s imperative that this conspirator is hanged to death. So it sends a message to the terrorists the world over, that India is not soft on terror,” said Shaina NC, a BJP spokesperson.
Memon’s last appeals for clemency come at a time when a government-appointed panel that frames laws for the country has held a rare debate, seeking the views of lawmakers, social scientists, journalists, lawyers and opinion makers across the country on the death penalty and whether it is time to do end it.
Last year, Indian courts sentenced 64 people to death, making the country one of the top 10 out of 55 where capital punishment still exists.
In recent years India’s death penalty has effectively been reserved for the most devastating killings, and sometimes not even then. Last year, the supreme court commuted the death sentences for three inmates convicted of assassinating former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, citing an 11-year delay in deciding on their appeals for mercy.
* Reuters and Associated Press
