Yakub Momen

Raising questions over 1993 Mumbai serial blasts convict Yakub Memon's expected hanging, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Thursday said Memon is being punished because of his religion. Addressing a public gathering in Hyderabad, Owaisi said Memon, who is likely to be hanged on July 30, accused the Centre of indulging in religious discrimination and said the government should execute all death row convicts. Owaisi said killers of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh are not being executed because of political pressure.

"The killers of Rajiv Gandhi and Beant Singh have the backing of political parties in Tamil Nadu and Punjab. Which political party is backing Yakub Memon? Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab has gone to the extent of pardoning Balwant Singh Rajoana," Owaisi said. Raking up the Babri Masjid issue, the Hyderabab MP said thousands of people were killed in communal riots following the demolition of Babri Majid, many officers were booked under serious chanrges but none were convicted. Later, talking to India Today TV, Owaisi said he is not against the court's verdict in Memon's case but the circumstances leading to his death penalty can not be ignored. Earlier, in a last-ditch effort to avoid execution of his death sentence, Yakub Memon, the lone death row convict in the 1993 Bombay serial blasts that left 257 dead and over 700 injured, filed mercy petition to Maharashtra Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao. The move came after the Supreme Court rejected his curative petition, the last legal remedy available to avoid execution of death sentence. A three judge bench headed by Chief Justice HL Dattu rejected Memon's plea, saying that the grounds raised by him do not fall within the principles laid down by the apex court in 2002 for deciding curative petitions. Memon, in his plea, had claimed he was suffering from schizophrenia since 1996 and remained behind the bars for nearly 20 years. He had sought commutation of death penalty contending that a convict cannot be awarded life term and the extreme penalty simultaneously for the same offence. The apex court said, "The petitioner has raised certain grounds in the curative petition which would not fall within the principles laid down in the case of Rupa Ashok Hurra vs Ashok Hurra. The apex court had on April 9 this year dismissed Memon's petition seeking review of his death sentence which was upheld on March 21, 2013. President Pranab Mukherjee had earlier rejected his mercy petition in May 2014. The Supreme Court, while upholding the death sentence to Memon, a chartered accountant by profession, on March 21, 2013, described him as the "driving spirit" behind the carnage that followed the communal riots of 1992. The Supreme Court had also upheld the life sentence awarded to 23 others, including Yakub brother Essa, who was found guilty of conspiracy and allowing the use of his flat at Al-Hussaini building at Mahim for meetings to plan the blasts and storing arms and ammunition, and sister-in-law Rubina, who arranged finances and allowed her car to be used by terrorists for carrying co-conspirators, arms, ammunition and explosives. Yakub was arrested on August 6, 1994 when he arrived at Delhi Airport from Kathmandu. He had claimed he felt remorse and wanted to surrender.