On the day of his hanging at the Nagpur central prison on Thursday, Yakub Memon reportedly woke up at 3.30 a.m. and took a bath.
He was then given breakfast and some time to offer his last namaz and read the Holy Koran one last time.
Asked about his condition at the time of execution, a source with access to Yakub said, “How can a person be stable when he knows that all his legal options have been exhausted and he may be hanged within a few days? I don’t even believe that they [jail administration] videographed his execution and post-mortem as reported in the media, because it is impossible to follow every rule in the jail manual while carrying out an execution.”
Yakub was declared dead 10 minutes after his execution and the post-mortem was conducted by 7.45 a.m.
“His brother Sulaiman had moved the application for his body on Wednesday evening, when he, along with advocate Anil Gedam and Usman Memon went inside the jail. Yakub spoke to Sulaiman for 10 minutes. The entire conversation was in Memony language except the words when he asked his brother to take care of his wife and daughter,” informed a jail source.
Yakub’s cousin Usman had been camping in Nagpur since July 27.
Sulaiman reached Nagpur by a morning flight on Wednesday. Both of them were put up in Hotel Dwarka here.
Six people including the jail superintendent, the magistrate, three doctors and the hangman were present at the time of execution.
It’s not clear whether the “trained” constable who was brought from Pune carried out the execution or someone posted in Nagpur jail was asked to the job.
Usman and Sulaiman were watching the news channels until early morning on Thursday when the Supreme Court rejected Yakub’s last plea.
Both of them left for jail at 8.30 a.m.
The brother and the cousin of Yakub completed all formalities by 9. 30. a.m. However the body was handed over to them only in Mumbai.Two ambulances were kept ready inside the jail premises by the police.
At 9.35 a.m. a “dummy” ambulance left the jail premises and moved towards “Deekshabhoomi” in Nagpur to distract the media. At 9.40 a.m., another ambulance, escorted by two police vans, left the jail premises for Nagpur airport. At 10.30 a.m., the Indigo Airlines flight 6E544 left for Mumbai carrying Yakub’s body.
Sulaiman and Usman also went on the same flight.
