'Businesslike' hanging, two hours to spare

TT, Nagpur, July 30: The end came swiftly for Yakub Abdul Razzak Memon on the morning of his 53rd birthday, apparently without any fuss or drama and in contrast with the tumult that preceded the hanging.

There was no birthday cake for him nor any last-minute call to his daughter in honour of a final wish, as some reports have suggested, a senior Nagpur police officer said.

"It was all routine and businesslike," said the officer. 

But details, especially about Yakub's emotional state, remain sketchy because the four people who witnessed the Bombay blast convict's last moments at his prison cell and the gallows in Nagpur Central Jail would not speak, at least for now.

It's not clear how and exactly when Yakub received the news that his last chance was gone.

After a few hectic days when Yakub and his lawyers moved a raft of court petitions and mercy pleas, the Supreme Court rejected his final appeal seeking postponement of the execution. The court announced the decision at 4.56am after its first-ever session so late into the night.

By then only two hours were left for the hanging.

The prisoner, who had grown a short white beard, was taken to the gallows - set up at a secluded spot in the jail compound - minutes before the execution and after one last medical check-up. He was wearing a skullcap and fresh white kurta-pyjamas, the officer said.

"His body lay hanging for half an hour in keeping with procedure before it was shifted to the prison hospital for a post-mortem, which took another 20 minutes or so," he added. "The body was later embalmed, placed in a coffin and flown to Mumbai."

No one except prison superintendent Yogesh Desai and the guard posted outside Yakub's cell knows how he spent his last few hours in solitary confinement.

Yakub may have taken a bath or offered his prayers, but nothing is laid down in the prison manual, said the senior police officer who spoke to this newspaper.

The officer said he last saw Yakub when he met his elder brother Suleiman for half an hour in private last evening.

"He looked pale, a bit down, last evening," the officer said. This was after the Supreme Court had dismissed in the afternoon his writ appeal for a stay on the hanging, but before the President had rejected his second clemency petition and his lawyers had moved a last-ditch plea before the Chief Justice well past midnight.

"There was some confusion late last night when his lawyers moved the Supreme Court once again and the court decided to hear his petition after 3am today," the officer said.

"But the state home department wrote to the prison authorities that Yakub would have to be executed unless the court stayed it."

The only witnesses to the hanging were a prison medical officer, a magistrate nominated by the collector who read out the part of the judgment mentioning his conviction and death sentence, jail superintendent Desai, and the constable who pulled the lever.

Yakub, a chartered accountant by training, did not make any will, his local lawyer Anil Gedam was quoted by the media as saying yesterday. Gedam said Yakub had been expecting some leniency from the apex court or the President at least till evening.

Jail superintendent Desai decided to hand Yakub's body over to his family after Suleiman gave a written request last evening, an official said.

No official statement came from any authority except a few television bites by Maharashtra's additional chief secretary (home), K.P. Bakshi.

Bakshi said the body was handed over to Yakub's family on condition they would not organise a funeral procession in Mumbai, keeping in mind the security concerns.

Today, Yakub's wife Rahin and daughter Zubeda received the body at their home in Mahim, Mumbai, after it was flown there.

Suleiman and Yakub's cousin Usman Memon, who had been camping in Nagpur for the past few days, travelled on the same flight along with an inspector and a constable from Nagpur and two jail officials.

The executioner today was the same constable who had hanged Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab, convicted of the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, three years ago at Yerwada jail, a PTI report said. The constable, whose identity has been kept confidential for security reasons, had been transferred to the Nagpur jail a week ago for the hanging.

Yakub shared something also with Dhananjoy Chatterjee - the security guard who killed a teenaged Hetal Parekh and was the last man hanged in Calcutta. Dhananjoy too was hanged on his birthday, on August 14, 2004.

A former prison official said Yakub was well read and generally very well behaved. He hardly expressed any emotions during his prison days but reportedly broke down last week when he met Zubeda, 21.

Since being shifted to the Nagpur jail in 2007, Yakub had completed his master's in English literature and political science from the Indira Gandhi National Open University, which runs a centre on the prison premises for the inmates.

Last June, Yakub had missed an examination of the university for another course, disturbed that the President had rejected his mercy plea. He spoke, by all accounts, a chaste Arabic, Memoni, English, Hindi and Marathi.