“Look after my wife and daughter Zubaida” were the last words of the 1993 Mumbai blasts convict Yakub Abdul Razak Memon to his brother Sulaiman Memon, who had gone to see him one last time on Wednesday evening and to make an application to get his body.
Brother of Tiger Memon, the “mastermind” > behind the blasts , Yakub was hanged in the Nagpur central prison at 7 a.m. on Thursday, hardly two hours after a Supreme Court Bench rejected his last-ditch attempt to postpone his execution.
“He was hopeful until the time the jail superintendent and magistrate read out his death warrant and explained to him the reasons why he was being hanged,” said a jail source.
>A chartered accountant by profession , Yakub was executed on the day he turned 53, and a day before his daughter Zubaida was to turn 22. A family source denied the rumours in a section of the media that he wished to speak or spoke to his daughter before his execution on Thursday.
“He did not speak to Zubaida. The family did not even get any phone call from the jail. The last communication was a sealed envelope given to Sulaiman in his hotel in Nagpur at 2 a.m. The letter was an intimation that Yakub would be hanged between 6 to 7 a.m. on Thursday,” another source close to the family told The Hindu.
1993 blasts: Looking back
On March 12, 1993, 13 blasts ripped through the commercial and social hubs of Mumbai killing 260 and injuring over 700. The bombs were timed and placed to create maximum havoc and create a major rip in the communal fabric of the city and the nation.
>War on Mumbai
The powerful explosions dealt a benumbing blow to the collective consciousness of Mumbai which remains a soft target after facing six major terror attacks in 22 years
>Black Friday: A tale of horror
It has been 22 years since the horrific incident, but 62-year-old Suresh More says he can never forget that Friday afternoon on March 12 when Mumbai got a bloodbath.
>From messenger to mastermind
Yakub Memon would pay for his brother's sins and become the only man to be sentenced to death in the Mumbai blasts case.
Timeline
>The good doctor who saved precious lives
Dr. Jaychand Mandot’s doctor’s eye for details came in handy for the police.
>From 'best' CA to death row detenu
Yakub was once named the best chartered accountant by the Memon community
>Justice or vengeance?
Procedure followed to obtain death warrant for Yakub Memon suffers from serious constitutional flaws
>Yakub Memon and the story of the death penalty
This will be India's third execution since it lifted its informal 8-year moratorium
>40 operations, zero compensation: Why? Asks 1993 blast victim
Kirti Ajmera, injured in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, talked to The Hindu.
>How Mumbai Police got their first clue to Memon family
As Mr. Walishetty recalls, it was the inspection of a suspicious van in Worli that led the police to Yakub’s family.
>Doctors performed non-stop operations as Mumbai queued for blood donation
Two blasts separated by an hour accounted for over hundred lives and injured nearly thrice as much.
>Yakub Memon hanged at Nagpur central prison
Yakub Abdul Razak Memon was executed at Nagpur central prison at around 6.30 am on July 30.