Janjivan Bureau
New Delhi/ Ngpur: Hours after the Supreme Court dismissed a curative petition by Yakub Abdul Razak Memon, the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts convict on Tuesday filed mercy plea before Maharashtra Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao.
This is his last-ditch bid to prevent execution of his death sentence on July 30.Memon, the only convict on death row in the case, handed over his mercy petition to the authorities of the Nagpur Central Jail here, where he is currently lodged, his lawyer Anil Gedam told Journalists.
The petition was handed over to the authorities after Gedam met Memon in the jail. Gedam, accompanied by Memon’s cousin Usman, had met him last afternoon too. Shubal Farooque, Memon’s Delhi-based lawyer, also met him today.
When asked about the validity of second mercy petition, advocate Gedam said the first had been filed by his brother Suleman Memon, while this was the first mercy petition filed by Yakub himself.
Jail superintendent Yogesh Desai did not respond when approached for his comment.
A three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice H L Dattu had earlier in the day rejected Memon’s curative petition, saying the grounds raised by him do not fall within the principles laid down by the apex court in 2002.
The serial blasts in March 1993 had left 257 dead and over 700 injured. Yakub Memon is the only convict whose death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court. President Pranab Mukherjee had rejected his mercy petition in May 2014.
