New Delhi, July 30
A political war of words
erupted on Thursday over the execution of 1993 Mumbai blast convict
Yakub Memon, with a section of opposition leaders speaking against the
death sentence.
Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh fired
the first salvo, saying that the BJP- led government should show
"similar commitment" in all cases of terror as it showed in the case of
Yakub Memon.
"I hope similar commitment of the government and the
judiciary would be shown in all cases of terror, irrespective of their
caste, creed and religion," he said in a tweet following Memon's
execution in the Nagpur central jail on Thursday morning.
Party colleague and former union minister Shashi Tharoor said he was "saddened" by Memon's execution.
"Saddened
by news that our government has hanged a human being. State-sponsored
killing diminishes us all by reducing us to murderers too," Tharoor
tweeted.
"There is no evidence that death penalty serves as a
deterrent, to the contrary in fact. All it does is exact retribution,
unworthy of a government," the Thiruvananthapuram parliamentarian said.
"I'm
not commenting on the merits of a specific case; that's for the Supreme
Court to decide. Problem is death penalty in principle and practice,"
he added.
Communist Party of India (CPI) parliamentarian D. Raja,
meanwhile, said that the death penalty should be done away with in the
country.
"India should say an emphatic no to capital
punishment.... It does not mean we do not have sympathy with those
(blast victims') families, but by snatching away one life will not bring
back all those lives," Raja said.
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul
Muslimeen leader and Hyderabad parliamenarian Asaduddin Owaisi said the
government should ensure death sentence in all similar cases.
"Death sentence should also be given to Babu Bajrangi, Maya Kodnani, Col. Purohit and Swami Aseemanand," he said.
While
Babu Bajrangi and Maya Kodnani are accused in the Gujarat riots, Col.
Purohit and Swami Aseemanand are accused in the Malegaon blast.
The
ruling BJP slammed the leaders opposed to the hanging, Tharoor and
Digvijaya Singh were foresaken by the Congress as well, which said it
was their "personal views".
Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the views were that of the leaders concerned and not of the Congress.
Former
home secretary and BJP parliamentarian R.K. Singh said those making
such comments did not have national interests on their minds.
"These
people don't think about national interest. Whether he (Yakub) had to
be hanged or not was not to be decided by the government but the court,
and the president uses his judgement after that...," he said.
Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, said justice had been done.
"Justice
has been done; this increased the people's faith in the judicial
process. He got two decades to prove his innocence, and he was proven
guilty," he said.
Yakub Abdul Razzak Memon, convicted in the
March 12, 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, was hanged till death at
Maharashtra's Nagpur central jail on Thursday morning.
Gag order on Memon funeral; media blacks out telecast
Not willing to take any
chances, police here on Thursday issued a gag order to the media barring
it from photographing and videographing the funeral procession and the
last rites of hanged convict Yakub Memon.
The 13-hour gag order
was issued by Deputy Commissioner of Police (Operations) Sanjay Barkund
from 11 a.m. till midnight of Thursday.
Following this, all TV channels voluntarily dissuaded from telecasting the funeral procession and the last rites.
Certain
TV channels even flashed a notice, saying they would not telecast the
funeral as Memon was a traitor and they would not make him a "hero" by
publicizing his last rites.
The police order restraining the
media said reports were received of "every likelihood of breach of peace
and disturbance of public tranquillity and also there is a grave danger
to human life, health and safety and injury to public property on that
account".
The March 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts convict was executed
at 6.35 a.m. in Nagpur on Thursday. His body was handed over to his
family and flown to Mumbai by an air ambulance for the funeral rites.
Memon's borthers' Suleman and Usman
Body reaches Mumbai