NAGPUR , India, July 29 (UPI) — India’s Nagpur Central Jail is preparing to execute the man convicted of involvement in the 1993 bombing of the Mumbai stock exchange, which killed 257 people.
Yakub Memon, who will be 53 on Thursday, the day of his scheduled hanging has exhausted all available judicial appeals authorities said Wednesday.
Practice hangings according to the jail manual, and other preparations, are in place.
Memon was convicted in 2007 for helping raise funding for 13 explosions which rocked downtown Mumbai and led to street riots which left over 900 people dead, the majority of them Muslims. The bombings were retaliation for the destruction by Hindu mobs, four months earlier, of the 454-year-old Babri Masjid mosque in Ayodhya, believed to be built atop an ancient Hindu temple. The demise of the mosque was a rare violent provocation by Hindu hardliners and led to riots across India.
The death penalty is rarely invoked in Indian law, and while some see Memon’s execution as deserved justice, others regard him as an exploited scapegoat of those seeking to fan ethnic and religious divisions in India. The situation has caused a deep divide in India’s Hindu-Muslim relations.
Authorities have invoked Section 144 of the Indian penal code, barring unlawful assembly within 500 meters of the jail, to prevent demonstrations; security personnel at the jail have been placed on high alert, and the prison has been turned into a fortress of security.
Memon is scheduled to be put to death early Thursday morning.
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