Topic of the week for discussion: 23rd to 29th July 2015 Topic: JUSTICE OR JUST SYMBOLISM 1993 Mumbai Blasts: A brief Outlook The 1993 Bombay bombings was the name given to 13 serial explosions that took place in Mumbai on Friday, March 12, 1993. The first bomb went off at 1:30 pm in the basement of the Bombay Stock Exchange building. From 1:30 pm to 3:40 pm a total of 13 bombs exploded throughout Mumbai including at Fisherman`s Colony in Mahim, Plaza Cinema, Zaveri Bazaar, Katha Bazaar, Hotel Sea Rock, Hotel Juhu Centaur, Air India building, Sahar Airpot, Worli, and Passport office, besides BSE. Most bombs were planted in cars or scooters. In the hotels, suitcase bombs were left in the rooms. The 1993 bombings left at least 250 dead and over 700 injured, making these one of the bloodiest terror attacks. The operation is believed to have been the brain child of Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI, however Dawood Ibrahim along with his underworld associates including Tiger Memon, Ayub Memon and Yakub Memon were behind the planning and their operational execution. Topic Sanjay Dutt has been booked in the case for possession of illegal weapons and destruction of evidence under the Arms Act. He has Introduction however been given a clean chit as far as his involvement in planning or executing the Mumbai blasts of 1993 is concerned. Sharad Pawar was the chief minister of Maharashtra in 1993 and had admitted to deliberately making false statements and misleading people on information so as to avoid outbreak of communal clashes. The Supreme Court turned down on Tuesday the mercy plea of terror mastermind Yakub Memon – convicted in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts case. He will be hanged by the Maharashtra government at 7am on July 30.The only well- educated member of the Memon family was found guilty of criminal conspiracy and arranging money and managing its disbursement through the co-accused in the Mumbai serial blasts case. Who is Yakub Memon? Yakub Abdul Razak Memon, brother of fugitive terror mastermind Tiger Memon, has been behind bars since 1994, when the CBI purportedly arrested him from Kathmandu. He is likely to be hanged till death on July 30, which will also be his 53rd birthday as per prison records. Charges against Memon According to the charges, key conspirators Tiger Memon, along with Dawood Ibrahim and his brother Anees Ibrahim, had called some of their trusted men, including Yakub, to Dubai between December 1992 and January 1993 to chalk out a plan to execute the serial blasts in Mumbai. It was alleged that Memon had played a key role in the execution of the conspiracy. He was also accused of giving financial assistance to the terrorist activity. It was alleged that Memon had, through his contacts, arranged Rs 21.90 lakh for the execution of the plan. The prosecution had alleged that the Memon family played an active role in the blasts and that their own vehicles were used to plant bombs. Yakub was also accused of distribution of arms and ammunition, detonators and explosives to other accused. How the case progressed Sentenced to death by a special Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) (Tada) court in 2007, Memon has exhausted all legal options in trying to escape the gallows. While the President refused to pardon him, a three-judge Supreme Court bench, too, upheld his death sentence. In April 2015, Memon's petition to reconsider the previous verdict was junked by a three-judge Supreme Court bench. Double masters degrees Yakub was kept at the Arthur Road jail initially and, after the sentencing in 2007, was shifted to the Nagpur Central Jail. A chartered accountant by profession, Yakub was kept in the high-security Anda Cell. Memon's conviction and the awarding of the death penalty did not deter him from pursuing education. While in prison, he completed two masters degrees from Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). In 2013, Memon acquired a masters in English literature, and next year, in political science. Controversy about Yakub’s Death Sentence: There is no direct evidence against him. Only the statement of an approver, and confessions of co-accused who later retracted them, accuse him of being party to the plan to execute multiple bomb blasts in Mumbai. Such statements and retracted confessions have not been considered sufficient by trial courts to convict terror accused. Tiger Memon made sure his entire family was in Dubai when the blasts took place on March 12, 1993. From there, they were shifted to Pakistan by the ISI. Yakub could have stayed on in Pakistan, living a life of luxury under the ISI's protective cover. Instead, he chose to return to India in July 1994 to clear his name, and convinced some of his family to do so too. Explaining his decision in a letter written from jail to the Chief Justice of India in July 1999, Yakub said he felt confident his innocence would be established in Indian courts, and that he could bring up his children as Indians. The Indian government was party to his surrender. The government betrayed his trust by tom-tomming in Parliament that he had been arrested, charging him and his family members under the Terrorist & Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, and opposing their bail. Some important facts: Mumbai City on High Alert in the wake of reports of the likely hanging Yakub has spent 23 years in jail, 13 as an under trial, most of them in solitary confinement. Imtiaz Ali, director of popular Bollywood films like Jab We Met and Rockstar, played the role of Memon in Anurag Kashyap’s cult film Black Friday (2004), which was based on the 1993 blasts. Read further: http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/yakub-memons-story-he-saw-it-as-sacrifice/ http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/yakub-memon-will-hang-because-supreme-court-has- rejected-the-last-legal-recourse-for-a-convict-seeking-reconsideration-of-punishment-what-is-it/ http://www.rediff.com/news/report/why-its-wrong-to-hang-yakub-memon/20150720.htm http://www.rediff.com/news/special/from-rediff-archives-the-strange-case-of-yakub- memon/20150410.htm .