This Article is From Jul 25, 2015

Maharashtra Bureaucrats Consult Governor on Yakub Memon's Mercy Plea

Maharashtra Bureaucrats Consult Governor on Yakub Memon's Mercy Plea

File photo of Yakub Memon

Mumbai: Two senior bureaucrats of Maharashtra met Governor C Vidyasagar Rao on Saturday morning to discuss the mercy petition moved by '93 blasts convict Yakub Memon, who is to be executed on July 30.

Additional Chief Secretary (Home) K P Bakshi and Principal Secretary (Law and Judiciary) M A Sayeed had a hour-long  meeting with the Governor to help the governor decide on his fresh mercy petition.  

Memon's mercy plea was rejected in May 2014 by President Pranab Mukherjee. His last-minute appeal against capital punishment was rejected by the top court just two days ago.   

He has filed a fresh appeal in Supreme Court a for stay on the execution, which the court is likely to hear on July 27.

In the plea, Memon said the death warrant was issued before he had exhausted all legal remedies.

The Maharashtra government has said it will follow the directions of the apex court. Sources have confirmed to NDTV that preparations have begun for the execution.

The death warrant for Memon has created a controversy, with Asaduddin Owaisi, the president of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, saying yesterday that the killers of Rajiv Gandhi and Beant Singh "have the backing of respective political parties", so they have not been executed.

"Bringing religion into Yakub's death sentence case does not make much sense," said Uddhav Thackeray, the president of the state's ruling ally Shiv Sena.

"The people who died also had a religion. Such comments should be ignored and not taken into consideration," he added.

Yesterday NDTV had reported  on how one of India's most-respected counter-terror officers, B Raman, who led the operation to bring Memon back to India from Pakistan in 1994, wrote that he did not believe that Memon deserved to hang.

Of the 11 people convicted in the case, Memon alone has been given the death sentence. He has spent over two decades in jail and has said repeatedly in court that he was unaware of the conspiracy that was reportedly masterminded by his brother, Tiger, and Dawood Ibrahim, who have been on the run since 1993.
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