Yakub Memon appeared calm before hanging

Mumbai/New Delhi: Yakub Memon’s senior counsels, Anand Grover and Yug Chowdhury, contended the authorities were “hell-bent” on executing him without giving him the right to challenge the rejection of his mercy petition by the President.

Memon (it was his 53rd birthday on Thursday) went to sleep at 11 pm on Wednesday in the “condemned cell” after eating a chicken leg and some rotis for dinner around two hours before that.

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Before going to sleep, he asked what time he would be woken up the next day. “He was woken up at 5 am... after having a bath, he had some tea and was given the Quran to read. He was then taken for a medical examination. By that time it was 6.30 am and he was asked what his last wish was,” sources said.

According to Nagpur police sources, he said he wished to speak to his daughter Zubeida. Using the prison’s official landline, Memon spoke to Zubeida. The nature and duration of the conversation remains unclear.

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By that time, Nagpur city’s metropolitan magistrate, judge M.M. Desh-pande, and deputy collector Girish Joshi had reached the prison.
The former read out the legal citation where the charges against him and the reason for his hanging were spelt out. He was then asked he if concurred with the judgment. Yakub responded in the negative.

“He looked like he had resigned himself to his fate and appeared calm,” said an officer.  He was then taken to the gallows at 6.55 am. The noose was put around Yakub’s neck, his hands bound behind his back, legs tied, and then, at a signal to the hangman, the lever was pulled.

“We kept the body suspended for around 10 minutes before we took it down and the medical superintendent pronounced him dead. A post-mortem examination was conducted where strangulation and injury to the spinal cord at the neck was ascertained as the cause of death,” the official added.

By 8.15 am, Yakub’s brother, Suleiman, and cousin Usman reached the prison. The body was transported to Nagpur airport in an ambulance, taken through the cargo terminal and put on the 10.30 am Indigo Airlines flight to Mumbai.