India hangs 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts plotter Yakub Memon

Mumbai

 India executed convicted bomb plotter Yakub Memon yesterday for conspiring in the nation's deadliest attack, a series of blasts that killed hundreds in Mumbai more than two decades ago.

 Memon was hanged at Nagpur jail in the western state of Maharashtra on his 53rd birthday after India's president Pranab Mukherjee and Supreme Court rejected 11th-hour appeals for clemency.

 "It is complete. Yakub Memon was hanged today at 7:00 am (0130 GMT)," Nagpur police sub-inspector R.V Halami said.

 Memon’s body was buried, amidst tight security, at the Bada Kabrastan in New Marine Lines, south Mumbai where his father had also been buried.

 Memon, a former accountant, was convicted of plotting a series of coordinated bomb attacks in Mumbai in March 1993, killing 257 people and injuring around 700 more.

 The Bombay Stock Exchange, the offices of Air India and a luxury hotel were among about a dozen targets of the blasts.

 They were believed to have been staged by Mumbai's Muslim-dominated underworld in retaliation for anti-Muslim violence that had killed more than 1,000 people a few months earlier.

 Memon and two of his brothers were convicted in 2006 by a specially-designated court using controversial anti-terror legislation that was introduced after the 1993 attacks and is no longer on the statute books.

 The Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act lapsed after two years and was never revived, with activists accusing the government of using it to harass Muslims.

 Memon was the only one of 11 people found guilty over the atrocity to have his death sentence upheld on appeal. The others had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment.

 He denied any involvement in the blasts during a staggered trial and appeal process that bitterly divided opinion in India and led to calls from rights activists and an ex-judge for his life to be spared.

 Former Supreme Court judge Harjit Singh Bedi had also said reports that Memon co-operated with investigators and returned voluntarily from Pakistan, where he fled, should have been taken into account when hearing his appeal.