Why Yakub Memon should not be hanged

Death has fixed a date with the 1993 Mumbai serial blast convict Yakub Memon on July 30. Unless the Supreme Court steps in on Monday in a case which has again triggered a spirited debate around death sentence in the country.

The serial blasts on March 12, 1993, had ripped the maximum city totally apart. It came out as the handiworks of Dawood Ibrahim with help of Memon brothers. The prime accused Tiger Memon and Dawood are still out of reach. But by chance, Yakub was caught and now death stares at him.

In the latest disclosure by Rediff.com that deceased RAW officer B Raman, who handled the Yakub Memon's arrest, had strongly argued against the death sentence to Yakub Memon. Read it full here.

According to B Raman's article that was not published in 2007 and Rediff has put it online now, Yakub had come to Kathmandu from Karachi with the intention of surrendering to India and was picked up informally with the help of Nepal Police and later he was delcared arrested from New Delhi on 5 August 1994. So, his arrest remains controversial.

Yakub Memon's degree of involvement in the crime has always been contested. Moreover, his full cooperation to the investigating  agencies thereafter made him a state approver. His cooperation also helped India to establish Pakistan's link to the dastardly act.

B Raman's charge that the Indian authorities had deceived Yakub and his argument against the death sentence for one of the conspirators of the Mumbai blast is enough reason to halt the handing and take a relook into the matter. Death by the decree of law has to be in cases where the complicity of a person is beyond any doubt and must not to be done to satisfy the so called collective conscience of the society based on perception, propaganda and popular sentiments. The state  can't hang Yakub to compensate for its failure to catch Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon.

Bombay blasts masterminds Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon need to be brought to book for what they did but making Yakub a scapegoat will send a wrong signal and will go  against the cardinal principle of law that the punishment has to be equivalent to the crime.