Yakub Memon not first terrorist to be hanged. These were executed before him

[Hindustani78]

Yakub Memon not first terrorist to be hanged. These were executed before him | Zee News
Last Updated: Thursday, July 30, 2015 - 11:05

Zee Media Bureau

Mumbai: India on Thursday morning executed Yakub Memon, who was convicted for his involvement in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts.


Executions are rare in India and Memon has become the third terror convict to be hanged till death in the last four years.

Memon was sent to the gallows on a day when he turned 53. He was executed at the Nagpur Central Jail.

In the last four years prior to Memon's execution, 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks convict Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab and Parliament attack convict Mohammed Afzal Guru were hanged till death.

Kasab, the sole Pakistani gunman involved in the 26/11 attacks to have been captured alive, was hanged to death at the Yerwada central prison in Pune on November 21, 2012, in an operation that was shrouded in secrecy.

10 Pakistani Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists had descended on Mumbai on November 26, 2008 and unleashed mayhem, targeting many of the city's landmarks, including Hotel Taj and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus.

166 people, including some foreigners, were killed in the most brazen terror assault. Nine of the perpetrators were killed during the 60-hour siege and Kasab was captured alive.

Afzal Guru, meanwhile, was hanged at 8 am at Tihar Jail in the national capital on February 9, 2013.

Afzal was convicted of conspiracy in the December 2001 attack on Parliament and was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court in 2004.

On December 13, 2001, five heavily-armed terrorists had stormed the Parliament complex and opened indiscriminate fire, killing nine persons.

According to recent research by the National Law University in New Delhi, since the year 2000 more than 1,600 people have been sentenced to death.

However, for nearly a decade, India had an unofficial moratorium on executions. That ended in November 2012 with the hanging of Kasab.

(With Agency inputs)

 

[Hindustani78]

Know all about 1993 Mumbai serial blasts | Zee News

Nagpur: Yakub Memon, convicted in the March 12, 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts, was hanged till death at the Nagpur Central Jail in Maharashtra on Thursday morning, officials said.

Memon, the lone 1993 Mumbai serial blasts convict became the third terror convict to have been sent to the gallows in the last four years.

• Mar 12, 1993: A series of 13 explosions rock Mumbai resulting in 257 fatalities and injuries to 713 others.
• Apr 19: Actor Sanjay Dutt (accused number 117) arrested.
• Nov 4 : Over 10,000 page-long primary charge sheet filed against 189 accused, including Dutt.
• Nov 19: Case handed over to CBI.
• Apr 1, 1994: TADA court shifted from city's sessions and civil court to a separate building inside the premises of the Arthur Road Central Jail.
• Apr 10, 1995: 26 accused discharged by the TADA court. Charges framed against the remaining accused.
• Apr 19: Trial commences. * Apr-June: Charges framed against the accused. * June 30: Two accused, Mohammed Jameel and Usman Jhankanan, turn approvers in the case.
• Oct 14: Dutt granted bail by the Supreme Court.
• Mar 23, 1996: Judge J N Patel transfered and elevated as a high court judge.
• Mar 29: P D Kode designated as a special TADA judge for the case.
• Oct 2000: Examination of 684 prosecution witnesses ends.
• Mar 9-July 18, 2001: Accused record their statements.
• Aug 9: Prosecution begins arguments.
• Oct 18: Prosecution completes arguments.
• Nov 9: Defence starts arguments.
• Aug 22, 2002: Defence closes arguments.
• Feb 20, 2003: Dawood gang member Ejaz Pathan produced in court.
• Mar 20, 2003: Mustafa Dossa's remand proceedings and trial separated.
• Sept 2003: Trial ends. Court reserves Judgement.
• June 13, 2006: Gangster Abu Salem's trial separated.
• Aug 10: Judge P D Kode says judgement will be pronounced on September 12.
• Sept 12: Court starts delivering the judgement, pronounces four members of the Memon family guilty, acquits three. 12 convicts awarded death penalty while 20 were given life sentence.
• Nov 1, 2011: SC begins hearing on appeals filed by the 100 convicts as well as the state.
• Aug 29, 2012: SC reserves its order on the appeals.
• Mar 21, 2013: SC upholds death sentence of convict Yakub Memon, brother of Tiger Memon, and commutes death sentence of 10 convicts to life term. Life imprisonment of 16 out of 18 convicts also upheld.
• July 21, 2015: SC rejects Yakub's curative petition, Yakub Memon to be hanged on July 3oth.
• Jul 23: Memon moves SC seeking stay of execution of his death sentence scheduled for July 30.
• Jul 27: The case faces legal issues in SC regarding curative plea of Memon.
• Jul 28: Two judges' SC bench split over Yakub's plea, refers it to CJI for constituting larger bench.
• July 29, 2015: SC dismisses Yakub's plea against his execution and says issue of death warrant is in order.
• July 29, 2015: The mercy petition of Yakub Memon, facing gallows in the 1993 Mumbai blasts, was rejected by President Pranab Mukherjee after government advised him such a course.
• July 29, 2015: In yet another last ditch action, lawyers for Yakub Memon, moved the Supreme Court late night seeking stay of his hanging.

PTI

 

[Hindustani78]

1993 bombings conspiracy was a war on Mumbai - The Hindu
Updated: July 30, 2015 08:27 IST

A total of 2313 kgs of RDX, 1132 kgs of gelatine, 63 AK-56 rifles, 496 hand-grenades, and 39000 rounds of live rounds of AK-56, and 9mm was seized.

If the orgy of violence in December and January of 1993 in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition shattered the myth of Mumbai's cosmopolitanism, the powerful RDX-triggered explosions dealt a benumbing blow to the collective consciousness of the metropolis which remains a soft target after facing six major terror attacks in 22 years.

As Rakesh Maria, then a young Deputy Commissioner, and now Mumbai’s police commissioner, and his team of crime branch officials followed lead after lead, the huge seizures of explosives, arms and ammunition shocked Mumbai, and indicated that the serial bombings conspirators had prepared for virtually a war.

The first seizure was made on March 12, the day of the serial explosions. As it became clear that vehicles filled with explosives were used in the serial explosions, the Mumbai police began searching for more such suspicious vehicles parked across Mumbai. The first clue was provided by a Maruti van (no MFC 1972) abandoned behind Siemens factory in Worli in central Mumbai. The search led to the seizure of seven AK-56 rifles, four handgrenades, 14 magazines of AK-56 and one time pencil.

Investigations showed later that Tiger Memon’s associates Mohammed Usman, Shaikh Ali, Javed Chikna, Bashir Khan, and Nasir Ahmed alias Babloo had left the Memon residence at Al Husseini building at Mahim for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMMC) headquarters in South Mumbai. Mumbai police claimed the intention was to gatecrash into the building, and gun down corporators belonging to the Sena-BJP, some of whom were active during the December-January riots, to spark off fresh communal riots.

However, unaware of the RDX-laden car bomb placed at Century Bazaar, their car passed the Worli blast site and escaped the impact of the blast by a whisker. In panic, the group abandoned the car, and fled. This car's registration eventually led the police to the Memon family and the Al Husseini building in Mahim setting off the chain of events that unearthed the conspiracy and its contours.

It took 10 more days for the Maria-led team to gather more information about the huge quantities of arms and ammunition smuggled into Mumbai during the two arms landings by Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon, and Mohammed Dossa’s smuggling network operating on the picturesque Konkan coast. The two landings took place in January and February, 1993 at Shekhadi, and Dighi jetties in Shrivardhan tehsil of Raigad district, investigations showed later.

On March 23, 1993, the crime branch team seized 12 AK-56 rifles, 67 AK-56 magazines, 195 handgrenades, 5308 rounds of AK-56 ammunition, 600 electric detonators, five 9mm pistols and 12 9mm pistol magazines from a handcart in Lohar Chawl, close to the Crawford Market headquarters of the Mumbai police. The same day, two AK-56 rifles, and 195 live rounds of AK-56 were seized from Andheri in western suburbs.

But, the deadly RDX stocks were still elusive. Maria’s team achieved a big success on March 26, nearly a fortnight after the serial blasts, when it raided a ground floor flat of an uninhabited, under construction building in Mobin Nagar in Mumbra in Thane, and seized 1034 kg of RDX along with 574.5 kg of gelatine stored there among cement gunny bags. On the same day, other teams also seized 105 hand-grenades from Jungli Peer durgah in Worli in central Mumbai and 13 AK-56 rifles from Mhasala in Raigad. A day later, 85 hand-grenades, 3270 AK-56 bullets, and 350 electric detonators were seized from Musafirkhana in South Central Mumbai.

As the police continued to piece together the conspiracy, April brought in more seizures. The police seized 12 AK-56 rifles and 19500 rounds of ammunition from Mhasala in Raigad district. Next day, the police seized 44 magazines of AK-56 rifles and 9000 live rounds dumped in Kundalwala creek in Mhasala, Raigad district.

The biggest seizure of the whole operation came when divers pulled out gunny bags with 1,250 kg of Kala Sabun (black soap), as the black-coloured RDX was called in smuggling lingo, from the bed of Nagla Bunder creek in Thane. Another 558 kg of gelatine dumped in the creek by the conspirators to conceal the explosive was also seized. Another 29 kgs of RDX was seized from China creek not far from Nagla Bunder.

During the one and half month long investigations, a total of 2313 kgs of RDX, 1132 kgs of gelatine, 63 AK-56 rifles, 496 hand-grenades, and 39000 rounds of live rounds of AK-56, and 9mm was seized in 33 different case in Mumbai, Thane, and Raigad districts.

 

[Hindustani78]

Yakub Memon hanging: J&K MLA reveals he met Tiger Memon in Pakistan | Zee News

Srinagar: On the day Yakub Memon was hanged in a Nagpur jail, a Congress MLA in Kashmir on Thursday created a stir when he claimed meeting the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts mastermind Tiger Memon.


Militant-turned-Congress MLA Usman Majeed told DNA that Memon was undergoing arms training in Azad Kashmir (Azad Kashmir) when the duo met.

Majeed, who represents Bandipore in the Assembly, revealed that Tiger Memon feared that Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), might kill him after Yakub Memon "surrendered" to the Indian authorities.

"When Yakub surrendered, Tiger left Pakistan because he feared that the ISI will kill him. He felt humiliated and disgusted, and fled to Dubai. But after negotiations, they (ISI) brought him back because they did not want him to surrender. They feared Yakub might provide the platform and he will facilitate Tiger's surrender, too," Usman told DNA.

The Congress MLA further said that the ISI had provided good facilities to Tiger before Yakub surrendered. "But it was reduced after the surrender. He was not given even a house. He had three beautiful cars (before Yakub surrendered). After his return (from Dubai), he was provided only one old car," he said.

Hilal Beag, the founder of the Students Liberation Front and chief of the Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen militant outfit, had introduced Usman to Tiger.

"It dates back to the end of 1993 when I met Tiger. I met him 2-3 times. He used to come to Muzaffarabad (capital of Azad Kashmir). I was not friends with Tiger. Hilal introduced me to him saying he is the man," he said.

Usman had stayed in Pakistan for two years. Later, he returned and surrendered to Indian authorities. Usman decided to join the mainstream and won the Assembly Elections as an Independent candidate in 2002 from the Bandipora constituency.

Usman later became the minister of state in the then Mufti Mohammad Sayeed led PDP-Congress government. He was defeated by the PDP candidate in the 2008 Assembly Elections, but he wrested the seat in 2014 when he contested on a Congress ticket, reported DNA.

 

[Hindustani78]

1993 Mumbai blasts accused Yeda Yakub, close aide of Dawood Ibrahim, dies in Pakistan | Zee News

Last Updated: Friday, August 7, 2015 - 09:49
New Delhi: Yakub Wali Mohammad Khan alias Yeda Yakub, one of the key accused in 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, has died of heart attack in Pakistan's port city Karachi, reports said on Friday.

However, there is no official confirmation about Yeda's death.

Yeda, considered to be a close associate of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, died of a massive heart attack on Wednesday. He was unwell for last 2-3 months.

Meanwhile, commenting on Yeda's death, Mumbai Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria said that some sources have confirmed his death in Pakistan.

Yeda is survived by his wife and two sons who reside in Mumbai.

Reports say that two sons of Yeda Yakub are allegedly involved in large-scale illegal construction in the financial capital.

Anis and Imran – the two sons of Yeda Yakub, run a construction company by the name of MK Builders.

Last week on July 30, Yakub Memon, the lone 1993 Mumbai serial blasts convict whose death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court, was hanged to death.

Memon, who turned 53 on the same day, was hanged at Nagpur Central Prison at 7 am, the time set by the TADA court for execution of his death warrant.

The SC had described Yakub as the "driving spirit" behind the 12 coordinated blasts on March 12, 1993, that left 257 dead and 713 wounded.