Yakub Memon’s Hanging, Making a Villain a Hero: New Age Islam’s Selection from Indian Press, 8 August 2015
New Age Islam Edit Bureau
8 August, 2015
Kaduvayil Juma Masjid, Kollam
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• A Hindu and His Designer Mosques
By Shafeeq Hudavi
• Decoding the Message Sent From Pakistan
By Hiranmay Karlekar
• Questions that will not die
By Krishnadas Rajagopal
• Questions Arising Out Of the Supreme Court Judgment
By Krishnadas Rajagopal
• Yakub Memon’s Hanging: Making A Villain A Hero
By Sambit Patra
• Mumbai Still Has Its ‘Insaniyat’ Intact
Shobhaa De
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A Hindu and His Designer Mosques
By Shafeeq Hudavi
7 August 2015
Kozhikode: He is not a trained architect. He is not an artist. And he is not even a follower of Islam. Yet he comes up with most beautiful designs for mosques, so beautiful, his name has become synonymous with mosque building across Kerala.
Kottankal in Kottayam district, Beemappally, Kaduvappally, Alamcode Pally and Karunagappally in Kollam district are few of his famous works. The master designer is now busy with the construction works of Ilippakkulam mosque near Kattanam in Kollam district.
But what brought him into limelight was his first work that dates back to 1960s when he was a school going child while he drew sketch for the dome of the famous Palayam Juma Masjid in Thiruvananthapuram. Several philanthropic businessman and even government officials decided to renovate the Palayam Juma Masjid as the earlier structure was then almost 200 years old.
Gopalkrishnan’s father was a contractor, whose blueprints of the buildings he constructed, prompted Gopalkrishnan to make a few sketches, which in turn, impressed Kerala’s chief architect. They worked in tandem to complete the mosque as per his designs. When the renovated, re-constructed mosque was inaugurated few years later by the then President Dr Zakir Hussain, Muslims were hooked by his style – domes, minarets, something innovative for the land endowed with natural beauty and where temples, mosques and churches are all built keeping in mind the local architectural traditions, in sync with nature.
This sort of became his trademark, of creating new generation places of worship. Pristine white buildings, domes, minarets, Islamic calligraphy. All showing immense influence of Indo-Islamic architecture. Some are not white, but definitely sport colours unlikely to be found in traditional Kerala architecture: earthen colours and buildings hallmarked by sloping tiles roof to face heavy monsoon showers.
Gopalakrishnan says he got rid of the local architectural tradition as he “sees the world as one.” He follows Indo-Saracenic model in architecture. He hasn’t visited structures like Taj Mahal but refers the famous books ‘Indian Architecture: Islamic Period’ and ‘Indian Architecture: Hindu Period’ by Percy Brown.
“I could easily complete these mosques as I was stuck with the spiritual beauty of the mosques. The ability to draw sketches for mosques is bestowed on me by God as I have determined the sanctity of place of worship and respect them,” says Gopalakrishnan, who dropped out of college while pursuing diploma in engineering owing to the financial problems after his father fell ill.
Divine intervention! What else explains the ability of a person who has not visited any of the places outside Kerala to have been influenced any other styles of architecture to come up with showcases of Indo-Islamic architecture? Sheikh Masjid is akin to Taj Mahal, Koduvayil mosque in Kollam is a blend of Indo-Persian architecture and Nedunganda mosque borrows Indo-Saracen style.
His work has earned him so much name and fame, he is onto building his next mosque soon, the first outside his home state, at Dindigul in neighbouring Tamil Nadu. In fact, when TwoCircles.net contacted him on phone, Gopalkrishnan was returning home after a meeting with mosque committee at Dindigul. “If things go as expected, I will soon start construction of 102nd mosque in my life,” says the contractor.
Ask him about training, he clarifies: “I am a contractor, neither an engineer nor an architect. I had started working with my father K Govindan since my childhood. As I said earlier, God bestowed this skill, I fine-tuned it slowly from experience.”
K Govindan was one of the eminent contractors in Thiruvananthapuram. Gopalakrishnan, who was interested in drawing, utilised all opportunities to work with his father and started to draw sketches for the mosques. But he also owes much to TP Kuttyamu, first chief engineer of Kerala when the state was formed. “Kuttyamu Sahib was the encouraging force, tempting me, inspiring me to take over contracts for constructing more mosques after he entrusted me the duty of building Palayam mosque.”
Gopalakrishnan has constructed several residential complexes, shopping malls and other buildings too. The contractor, who keeps copies of Quran, Geeta and Bible at his home, is not just an advocate of but a practitioner of communal harmony. Gopalakrishnan observes roza during the holy month of Ramadan, he fasts during Easter and also the 41-day vrat during the Sabarimala pilgrimage.
His wife Jaya is a Christian. Govind, Sreeni and Neeni are sons. Govind’s wife is Lakshmi; Sreeni is married to Aneesha, a Muslim and Sreeni’s wife is Sajina. “I welcome all religions to my home and give them all a place they deserve,” the septuagenarian adds.
Apart from 101 mosques, he has also built five churches and working on the sixth.
Currently he is engaged in writing a Malayalam book on his experiences with Islamic tradition and Quran. The book named ‘Njan Kanda Quran’ – which literally means ‘The Quran, which I Saw’ – will be released soon. “Through my book, I will reveal the light, which came up on me from the holy book.”
After a lifetime of building places of worship, Gopalakrishnan has one dream: building and starting a ‘School of Religious Thoughts’, where Geeta, Quraan and Bible will be studied.
http://twocircles.net/2015aug07/1438935491.html#.VcWJj3Gqqkp
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Khalid Sabir, the Paper Collector
By Gargi Gupta
2 August 2015
Stamps, documents and books going back 100 years and more are just a small part of Khalid Sabir's paper trove filed away in his Delhi home. Gargi Gupta gets a look at the priceless collection that started with a kabadiwala
Shaheen Bagh is typical of Delhi's Jamia Nagar - all narrow pot-holed lanes festooned with dangling electric wires. Khalid Sabir's house, tucked away in one of the bylanes, is a nondescript two-storied structure. You enter through a side gate and walk into a carpeted hall from where a few unremarkable looking rooms branch out. There's nothing to indicate that housed in here are books, rare historical documents and stamps that are 100 years or older, each of which would fetch thousands of dollars in international auctions.
Foremost among Sabir's collections is a wedding invitation from Wajid Ali Shah, the lastnawab of Awadh, and his wife, Hazrat Mahal, to their son's nikaah. Written in Persian, thedaawat nama is printed on fine onion paper flecked with gold. Even grander is a nikaah nama (document recording marriage) of one Mirza Bedar Bakht Bahadur, dated 1895, richly decorated in pure gold. Among the seals that ring the document is one of Ali Naqi Khan, Wajid Ali's chief minister. "Also note the mehr (bride price) - Rs. 502,500," Sabir chuckles. "This, at a time Rs.100 would get you a palace of 20,000 square yards."
Amazingly, Sabir picked up all this quite by chance. "It was around 20 years ago. I had come to India and a kabadiwala (scrap dealer) called me from Lucknow, saying there was a man who wanted to sell some stamps and other stuff," he recounts.
Sabir then lived in London - he still spends two-three months of the year there - where he ran a computers business and also traded in stamps. "I bought the stamps, but the rest, weighing about 50 kg, was in a terrible state - white ants had destroyed half of it." That first time, Sabir left without buying, irritated with the owner who demanded Rs.1 lakh. But he got a call again a few months later and drove over from Allahabad, where his family lives. "I picked it up for a few hundred rupees." And what a treasure trove it was - besides the two mentioned, there were also documents pertaining to the marriage negotiations and later divorce of Wajid Ali's son.
Sabir is a compulsive hoarder. "I have," he says with pride, "documents from my birth to now - mark sheets, notebooks, doctor's prescription, tickets… I also have the documents of my brother, sister and uncle." It is stacked all over the 14 rooms of his house - large plastic boxes piled high along the walls of his bedroom; 10 steel almirahs in a windowless dressing room adjacent which contains the more valuable papers; two rooms for his stamps collections which also has the computer from where buys and sells stamps online, and four rooms upstairs with rows of shelves. Most of it is stacked neatly, some between plastic sheets, but without much thought to how the extremes of Delhi's weather would affect them.
To be sure, Sabir's collection is a bit of a hotchpotch, containing some gems such as a set of drawings dating to 1857 showing the secret plan of action that the British had drawn up for Delhi, 'Lakhnao', 'Cawnpore' and other north Indian cities in case of a sepoy uprising. This one was bought, says Sabir, from a London pawn shop a few years ago.
But it's mostly small-time kabadiwalas that Sabir favours. "Just six months ago, Jalil, a kabadiwala whose theka near Daryagunj I have been frequenting for many decades, gave me a set of documents. I went through it, a few caught my eye and I picked it up for a few hundred rupees," says Sabir. That set of papers contained a legal document recording the sale of land to a Britisher called Frere in 1860. This was a Sir Henry Bartle Frere, the first commissioner of Sindh, Sabir later discovered, and the land is where Frere Hall now stands in Karachi.
But for every such gem, Sabir's horde has several kilos of papers of uncertain value. Amazingly, he hasn't even gone through half of it. "It is not possible for one man to do it all," he says. But now he's got help. In February this year, Sabir signed an agreement with Dubai's Juma Al Majid Centre for Culture and Heritage – one of the largest archives of Islam and related material in the world. The Centre has undertaken to digitize Sabir's collection, catalogue it and conserve those that need it. In return, it will keep one digital copy of the documents so scholars can study them.
Sabir's dream, however, is grander. "If there can be a Khuda Baksh library, a Raza library, why not one named after Khalid Sabir?" he asks.
Why not, indeed.
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Decoding the Message Sent From Pakistan
By Hiranmay Karlekar
08 August 2015
It will be unwise to expect any change in Pakistan's attitude. Cross-border terror strikes will increase rather than decrease in number and ferocity. India must further strengthen its efforts to counter these
The recent past has witnessed the detonation of several explosive developments — the Islamic State’s declaration of war against India; the Dinanagar attack; the revelation in an article in The Dawn by Mr Tariq Khosa, a former Director General of the country’s Federal Investigation Agency, of the Pakistani establishment’s complicity in the staging of the 26/11 attacks; the attack on a Border Security Force convoy in Udhampur, Jammu, which led to the killing of two jawans, one Pakistani terrorist, and the apprehension of another.
Understandably, these have resurrected some of the observations that emerge from the woodwork whenever Pakistan triggers a major terrorist strike. One such is the affirmation that it has people like Mr Khosa who do not support its involvement in staging cross-border terrorist strikes, but they as well as civilian Governments favouring friendship with India, are thwarted by fundamentalist and/or dyed-in-the wool anti-India elements advocating continuing confrontation. These include a significant section of Pakistani Army and the country’s super spy organisation, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate. It is no secret that the Army and the ISI call the shots in the last reckoning.
The question follows whether Pakistan’s civilian Government, headed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, can defy their opposition and enter into a successful peace process. The answer is ‘no’. No civilian Government can do such a thing and survive. In 1993, the Army defenestrated him (then Prime Minister) and President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, who were constantly jousting. It not only removed but also imprisoned and, subsequently, exiled him, following the 1999 coup. Also ousted unceremoniously were Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977 and his daughter, Benazir Bhutto, in 1990. The Army, led by General Zia-ul-Haq was directly behind his ouster in 1977 and, indirectly but unmistakably, involved in his judicial murder in 1979.
The next question is whether the Army and the ISI can themselves change. The answer will be in the negative and accompanied by a gargantuan laughter. An important reason is that General-turned-President Zia-ul-Haq’s strenuous Islamisation policy in the 1980s has created a significant presence of fundamentalist Islamist elements in the Pakistani Army.
Zahid Hussain writes in Frontline Pakistan: The Path to Catastrophe and the Killing of Benazir Bhutto, “Islam was incorporated into the Army’s organisational fabric. For the first time Islamic teachings were introduced into the Pakistan Military Academy.” He adds, “Islamic training and philosopy were made a part of the curriculum of the Command and Staff College. A Directorate of Religious Instruction was instituted to educate the officer corps on Islam.” The subjects for promotions examinations were made to include Islamic education. Officers were required to read The Quranic Concept of War by Brigadier (Later Major General) SK Malik and were taught to be not just professional soldiers, but also soldiers of Islam. Zia-ul-Haq wrote in his foreword to the book, “The professional soldier in a Muslim Army pursuing the goals of a Muslim state, cannot become ‘professional’ if he does not take ‘the colour of Allah’ in all his activities.
Zia upgraded the status of Maulavis — until then barely tolerated by the military elite — attached to Army units, integrated them into the ethos of Army life and made it compulsory for them to go into battle with the troops. An officer had to be a devout Muslim to be promoted. Zahid Hussain writes, “Scores of highly professional and secular officers were sidelined for not meeting the criteria of being a ‘good Muslim’….many conservative officers reached the senior command level. Radical Islamist ideology permeated the Army with the free flow of religious political literature in the Armed Forces training institutions. Friday prayers at regimental mosques, a matter of individual choice in the past, became obligatory.”
The character of the officers corps changed. Earlier, it mainly drew young men from liberal, Westernised urban families and rural landed aristocracy, many of whom loved the good life and had little time for religious bigotry. Those who were exceptions and fundamentalists at heart had no impact on the general ethos. From the 1980s, officers began coming from conservative rural or middle class and lower middle class backgrounds and more prone to be attracted by Zia’s Islamisation drive. They became the main base of his regime.
The strength of such officers, known as ‘Zia bhartis’ or Zia recruits, in the Pakistani Army is a matter of speculation. Zaid Hussain quotes a retired lieutenant-general as saying that 25 to 30 per cent of officers had fundamentalist Islamist leanings. Mr Shuja Nawaz, a distinguished military historian and author of Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army and the Wars Within states that Zia recruits would run the Pakistani Army once the senior lieutenant-generals, commissioned between 1960 and 1980 retired. Given that it is now 2015, the process has by and large been completed.
Attempts to purge the Army of fundamentalist elements have failed. Besides, Mr Nawaz Sharif and his brother, Mr Shahbaz Sharif have very cordial relations with Hafiz Saeed who runs the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba and its parent organsation, Jamaat-ud-Dawa’h. As Chief Minister of Punjab, Mr Shahbaz Sharif had provided a grant-in-aid of `6.1 crore from the province’s 2013-2014 Budget to the Markaz-e-Toiba, the JuD’s largest centre, for setting up a “knowledge park” at the organisation’s campus at Muridkey in the outskirts, of Lahore, and another `35 crore to the JuD for the park and other initiatives in Punjab. Even if some miracle changes the Pakistani Army’s pathological anti-India stance, the Sharif brothers are unlikely to abandon Saeed and the JuD and LeT.
It will be unwise to expect any change in Pakistan’s attitude. There appeared to have been a chance of it after the Pakistani Taliban’s attack on an Army Public School in Peshawar on December 16, last year, which left 148 persons, including 134 students, dead. Authorities seemed to display a new resolve as grief and anger spread across Pakistan. “We announce that there will be no differentiation between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban,” said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the incident’s wake. Also, the Government lifted its moratorium on the execution of convicted militants and started to hang them in pairs or small groups. A law was quickly passed enabling the Army its own courts to try terrorists through summary proceedings.
The resolve proved ephemeral. Soon, it was business as usual. The message is simple. Terrorist attacks from Pakistan will not only continue but become more frequent violent. India must further strengthen its efforts to counter these.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/edit/decoding-the-message-sent-from-pakistan.html
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Questions that will not die
By Krishnadas Rajagopal
August 8, 2015
A series of questions are circulating in various circles of law, which raise disturbing issues about how Yakub Memon’s last-ditch efforts to stay his execution were handled.
A week after Yakub Abdul Razak Memon was sent to the gallows for his role in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, questions have been raised about the nature of the Supreme Court proceedings leading up to the execution, and the manner of disposal of his mercy plea by President Pranab Mukherjee hours before he was hanged. These had caused unease in legal and judicial circles and refuse to die down.
Questions have been raised on whether President Mukherjee rejected Memon’s mercy plea without proper application of the mind and in haste, considering the fact that there is no deadline for a President to decide mercy petitions.
His predecessor, Pratibha Patil, popularly described as the “most merciful President”, commuted the death sentences of 35 convicts during her tenure. A.P.J Abdul Kalam received 25 mercy petitions, rejected one and commuted another to life. K.R. Narayanan rejected one mercy petition but the execution was later stayed by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Prominent among the questions to the Supreme Court is why Memon was not allowed 14 days between the rejection of his clemency petition by the President and his hanging on July 30. The hearings in the Supreme Court dominated the week which ended in the execution of Memon.
On July 28, 2015, while dealing with a writ petition filed by Yakub Memon claiming procedural irregularity and violation of natural justice in the issue of a death warrant by a TADA court in Mumbai, a bench of Justices Anil R. Dave and Kurian Joseph disagreed on the latter’s point that Memon’s curative petition was not heard by the Supreme Court in accordance with the mandatory procedure prescribed in Order 48 (curative petitions) of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013.
In the split verdict (http://thne.ws/1K6NSkK) Justice Dave observed in the judgment that “submissions made about the curative petition do not appeal to me as they are irrelevant and there is no substance in them.”
Justice Joseph raised the serious issue that “the procedure prescribed under the law has been violated while dealing with the curative petition and that too, dealing with life of a person.” Staying the death warrant, Justice Joseph observed that the Supreme Court committed a serious procedural violation under Order 48, Rule 4 of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013 by not including all the judges, including him, who had heard Memon’s review petition in the subsequent curative process.
“After all, law is for man and law is never helpless and the Court, particularly the repository of such high constitutional powers like Supreme Court, shall not be rendered powerless,” Justice Joseph noted, asking that the curative petition be heard afresh.
The matter was referred to a three-judge bench led by Justice Dipak Misra and heard on July 29, the eve of the execution. In a day-long hearing which witnessed Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi calling the convict a “traitor”, the bench held that there was no “legal fallacy” in the issue of the death warrant.
In a judgment delivered at 4.15 pm (http://thne.ws/1IRS631) the court pointed out that the review process is limited to re-examination of the principal judgment of March 21, 2013, which confirmed the death penalty. On the question of validity of the death warrant, the bench held that it was served on Memon on July 13, 2015, giving him “sufficient time” under the law. It pointed out that Memon continued to avail himself of legal remedies even after the warrant was issued. The court acknowledged Mr. Rohatgi’s argument that “this is not a person who has never gone to court”. Hours after this judgment was pronounced, the same night, the President rejected Memon’s mercy petition, triggering another round of litigation, which culminated in the unprecedented pre-dawn hearing at the Supreme Court even as the clock ticked for the condemned man.
In a fresh petition, Memon, through his lawyers, said he had a right to challenge the President’s rejection of his mercy plea, but could only do so if it was formally served on him. He knew only what his counsel knew about the rejection from news reports. With only hours to live, he said he would be deprived of his right to a minimum 14 days to settle affairs and “make peace with God”.
The 14-page judgment (http://thne.ws/1K6NWAY) by the same bench, led by Justice Dipak Misra, said the day’s drill on the Memon case begins again, like a Phoenix rising. Memon has returned to court, it said, to urge for a second lease of life even before the ink had dried on the evening’s judgment. The judgment held that Memon had had sufficient time to make “wordly arrangements” when the “first mercy petition”, filed by his brother Suleiman, was rejected by the President in April 2014. It said granting Memon another 14 days would be a “travesty of justice”.
The Hindu has learnt that a series of questions have been raised in various circles of law, which look at how the case was handled.
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/questions-that-will-not-die/article7512966.ece
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Questions arising out of the Supreme Court judgment
By Krishnadas Rajagopal
August 8, 2015
— Memon specifically sought reconsideration of the verdict delivered on his review petition on April 9, 2015. But the July 29, 2015 judgment pronounced by a three-judge bench hardly addresses this specific issue. Justice S.S.M Quadri in the 2002 Rupa Ashok Hurra judgment by a five-judge Constitution Bench on curative petitions observes that “...declining to reconsider the judgment would be oppressive to judicial conscience and cause perpetuation of irremediable injustice”.
— The Supreme Court Rules, 2013, while dealing with curative petitions, says “three senior-most judges” of the Supreme Court should be part of the Curative Bench. The Chief Justice of India is never described in any statute or the Constitution as the “senior-most judge”. His distinct identity in law is the “Chief Justice of India”. An example for this is found in The Constitution (Ninety-Ninth Amendment) Act, 2014. So, should the curative process in the Memon petition have included the third senior-most judge in the Supreme Court, Justice J.S. Khehar?
— Why was Memon not given an opportunity to file additional written arguments as permitted under Order 48 Rule 4 (2) of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013 as part of the curative process? The 2013 Rules say “Unless otherwise ordered by the Court, a curative petition shall be disposed of by circulation without any oral arguments but the petitioner may supplement his petition by additional written arguments”.
— Memon’s writ petition under Article 32 of the Constitution for quashing the death warrant was rejected by a three-judge bench (Justices Dipak Misra, P.C. Pant and Amitava Roy) at 4.15 p.m. on July 29 — the eve of the execution — and the judgment was uploaded at around 11:00 p.m., a few hours before Memon was scheduled to be hanged to death. If he had not got a reasonable opportunity to read for himself the judgment before he was sent to the gallows, does it not amount to violation of natural justice? Again, did Memon get an opportunity to read the judgment delivered at around 5:00 a.m. on July 30, refusing to give him a 14-days breather between the President’s rejection of the mercy petition and the hanging? It is not enough if the lawyer knows the judgment, the case is filed by Memon, and he should read it himself. The case is in his name, the lawyer only pleads. The judgment is not for the lawyer, but for Memon.
— Article 137 is a constitutional remedy available to a person to file a review (against the July 29, 30 judgments). This was denied to him.
— The right to challenge the rejection of the mercy petition was denied; and this is wholly opposed to the constitutional scheme.
— An argument has been brought up that the first mercy petition filed by his brother Suleiman on behalf of Yakub Memon was dismissed in 2014, and there was no need for further time for him to prepare for the July 30 execution. This argument, however, does not take into account that Yakub Memon had filed several petitions (a review heard in open court for 10 days, a curative petition, two writ petitions, of which one merely sought 14 days’ time to make peace with God and settle family affairs) which gave him hope of continued existence in life. When a final ‘No’ is said, should some reasonable time not be given for him to reconcile to his fate?
— Has a constitutional court, anywhere in history, refused a person begging to live for just two more weeks? After spending 21 years in jail, what would have happened if his life was extended for just another 14 days, that too, in a single cell in the jail?
— Why was the final petition seeking a 14-day breather posted to the same three-judge Bench, which dismissed Memon’s plea for quashing the death warrant earlier the same day (July 29) and was exhausted hearing the case? In the normal course, the roster would have been a bench of two judges.
— In the history of the Supreme Court, has any case been heard with such speed? A three-judge bench, on July 29, decided Memon’s writ petition on merits without even issuing notice or giving an opportunity to file a counter.
— Under Article 21 of the Constitution, the Supreme Court is the protector of life. But why did the Supreme Court put so much strain in the last two days before Memon’s hearing?Should it have been more composed? What was the hurry? Memon could have continued his existence of 21 years for a few more days in a single jail cell.
Questions to the President
1. In the history of this country, has the President decided any clemency petitions eight hours before the execution? Again as a supplementary question, has the President given the Union Home Minister a personal hearing on a clemency plea?
2. Was the disclosure by B. Raman ever considered by the President before rejection of the mercy plea?
3. Was the condemned man’s plea that he is schizophrenic considered by the President while deciding the mercy petition? It goes against the principles of natural justice to hang a sick man.
4. Memon spent 21 years in jail. Did the President consider whether he was a reformed person? Was his conduct in jail considered? Under the theory of punishment, a reformed person should not be executed. Retribution should not be the sole reason to send a person to the gallows.
5. Has a person who has spent 21 years of his life behind bars without a single parole, a “zero person”, been executed before in the history of this country? Was Memon worth hanging?
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/questions-arising-out-of-the-supreme-court-judgement/article7512980.ece
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Yakub Memon’s hanging: Making a villain a hero
By Sambit Patra
August 8, 2015
Yakub Memon was made to look like a “prisoner of conscience” in the last week of his life by the human rights industry. First, Lok Sabha MP Asaduddin Owaisi argued that though Yakub was involved in planning the Mumbai serial blasts, he did not deserve death. Then, around 300 politicians, including MPs, legal luminaries and retired judges, petitioned the president to commute his death sentence. A candlelight vigil was observed at Jantar Mantar. Some people woke up to the absurdity of capital punishment. A posthumously published article by B. Raman, a former RAW official, further muddled the scenario. Several arguments were advanced to the benefit of Yakub. First, it was not Yakub but his elder brother, Tiger Memon, who was the co-conspirator of the Mumbai blasts. Second, he had voluntarily surrendered to the Indian authorities with his family members and therefore deserved leniency. Third, his prolonged confinement in jail made capital punishment redundant. Fourth, India should abolish capital punishment in line with other civilised nations of the world. The Supreme Court judgment pronounced by Justices P. Sathasivam and B.S. Chauhan on March 21, 2013 established the culpability of Yakub in the blasts case and confirmed the death sentence the Tada court awarded him in 2007. Yakub was one of the 11 convicts sentenced to death by the Tada court. But the SC found enough mitigating factors in the case of the other 10 convicts and reduced their sentences to rigorous life imprisonment. Why was Yakub singled out? The SC, obviously, had no enmity towards him. There was a subtle attempt by good samaritans to distinguish between the roles played by the Memon brothers. Such presumptions grow upon fond ignorance of the facts. The SC reconstructed the role of Yakub in the conspiracy through the confessional statements of different persons convicted by the Tada court. The confessions by at least 15 other accused had a common reference point — Yakub Memon. The judgment unequivocally stated that Yakub had assumed Tiger’s role in the latter’s absence. Tiger (when in Dubai or Pakistan) gave commands through Yakub, who passed them on to the other conspirators. The SC also found him guilty of conducting hawala transactions to facilitate the blasts. Yakub was also found guilty of arranging air tickets for the blasts perpetrators to travel to Pakistan and Dubai for arms-training. The SC found that only Yakub — apart from absconders including Dawood and Anees Ibrahim — had the full knowledge of the conspiracy. The other conspirators, whose death sentence was commuted, had only limited knowledge. The judges metaphorically stated that Yakub and the absconders were archers and the rest mere arrows in their hands. The court ruled that without the planning of the lead conspirators, among them Yakub, the explosives and ammunition used in the blast would not have entered India. Further, the actual bomb planters would not have acted without a green signal from them. The final conspiratorial meeting took place at the Al-Hussaini Building on the intervening night of March 11 and 12, 1993. The Memons occupied three flats in that six-storied building on Dargah Road, Mahim. RDX was transferred to vehicles, which were blown apart at different public places in Mumbai, from the open garages of this building. At least 15 co-accused deposed that they were present at that crucial meeting along with Tiger and Yakub. It is a deceptive argument that Yakub deserved mercy because he had spent 22 years in jail. The Tada court examined 686 witnesses and sifted through 13,000 pages of testimony. Of the 123 persons who went on trial, 100 were sentenced by the Tada court, whereas 23 were acquitted. The Tada court sentenced 11 people, including Yakub, to death and handed life and other sentences to the rest. The theory that Yakub deserved leniency because he and his family had surrendered is confounding. It did not come up during trial. They were busy trying to prove their utter non-involvement in the blasts. Leniency, the public prosecutor said, could not be extended to the principal conspirator. What if Dawood Ibrahim surrenders tomorrow, demanding pardon as a condition? Will the government absolve him? Remember, the 13 blasts that ravaged Mumbai killed 257 people, besides injuring 713. Another overlooked aspect is the arms-training given to recruits in Pakistan and the bringing of automatic assault weapons into the city. Actor Sanjay Dutt, now serving his sentence in Yerwada Central Jail, was the recipient of three AK-56 rifles from Abu Salem. The original conspiracy seemed to be larger than the planting of bombs. A 26/11 could have been orchestrated in 1993 itself. Also, Yakub was given full opportunity to present his defence. The debate over the abolition of the death penalty cannot be occasioned by the execution of a terror-plotter. Would there have been such a debate if an ordinary murderer was executed? A sustained and balanced debate is necessary. The writer is national spokesperson, BJP. Views are personal
http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/making-a-villain-a-hero/
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Mumbai still has its ‘insaniyat’ intact
Shobhaa De
Aug 07, 2015
A few days after “the hanging” (no need to explain which one), when passions were riding high and Mumbai was busy decoding the mixed signals on the street, I participated in Barkha Dutt’s popular show We The People. I did so with a great deal of reluctance and many reservations. Generally, these sort of broad based discussions go nowhere and generate more noise than anything else. But this was about Mumbai. Or, was meant to be. And I was still pretty shell shocked. That should have been a warning to stay away.
It isn’t advisable to share views on a public platform when one’s own state of mind is fragile. But I did. And no regrets. Because what I heard from the folks in the audience was of far greater importance than all the hot air we panellists produced, to say nothing of the uncivilised and uncouth behaviour of one or two participants. The same old clichés were trotted out. A shrill lady screamed, “Terrorism has no religion... no caste...” Another aggressive rabble-rouser screamed right back at her. For a while, mayhem ruled. All the while, the people in the audience displayed exemplary behaviour and kept their cool.
Studio audiences can make or break a show. And this is where the resourcefulness of the research team makes such a big difference. While panellists indulged in a verbal slugfest and tried to outscore one another politically, the studio audience displayed far better manners and waited patiently to be heard. But when it was their turn to speak — nothing else counted. These Mumbaikars had suffered directly... lost sons, taken bullets, barely survived. And their stories were so deeply moving that it was hard to hold back tears. A father had come carrying the school tie of a 13-year-old son who was killed when the bus he was travelling in was blown up during the 1993 blasts. Another father graphically recounted the tragedy of watching his 17 year old son being dragged out of their home by cops and shot in the ribs while his mother watched helplessly from a higher floor. The mother, who was seated next to her husband in the studio, was incoherent with grief as she heard the sad narration of that ghastly day in 1992 when communal riots flared up across Mumbai and over 900 people lost their lives.
Then came the turn of a man with sad, sad eyes whose story made my skin crawl. He was shot at by a policeman while he offered namaz in a local mosque. After spending days in a lock up, followed by some more days in a public hospital, it’s a wonder he’s still alive, given that he had taken a bullet. When he spoke, slowly and with deliberation, there was no anger, no bitterness in his voice. He spoke in sorrow. But ended on an uplifting note when he paid Mumbai a fantastic tribute. He said Mumbai was the kind of city that picked up a person who had fallen down and made him/her stand again. Nobody walks away... nobody asks the religion of that person... that is Mumbai’s greatness. Bravo! I want that Mumbai to be recognised and applauded. His words were about Mumbai’s insaniyat. Mumbai still has it.
I would like to believe his version of Mumbai. Because, deep down in my heart, I know what he is saying is true.
There have been systematic attempts to strip Mumbai of its insaniyat by people who stand to gain from a divided, polarised metropolis. Yes, there is complicity and a nasty cover-up. Politicians have worked hand-in-glove with anti-social elements, hardcore gangsters and a few rotten eggs in the police force, to cause havoc in Mumbai. The rift is visible. The rift is ugly. The rift is dangerous.
The average Mumbaikar does not want to be a part of this lethal conspiracy. But feels helpless. People get tossed around in this artificially generated war... people lose their lives... lose loved ones. What crime have they committed? It seems so grossly unfair. Despite that, they hold very little resentment in their hearts, even against the very forces that directly cause harm. They prefer to focus on the inherent goodness they find in fellow Mumbaikars — the deeply entrenched insaniyat that keeps the city from going up in flames each time trouble-makers try to incite the mobs.
How does one communicate the simple philosophy of insaniyat to young Mumbaikars, to Young India? We have incredibly talented people working in the field of mass communication. Some of the public service ads on television are superbly visualised and powerfully scripted. Government agencies can easily tap into this talent pool and take the message of humaneness forward. This is our only hope at a time when emotions are running high, and the smallest trigger can unleash the worst form of violence against innocents.
I keep going back to that wise man’s gentle voice and profound words. He has understood something far deeper about survival than most of us — the truth of life is not all that difficult to grasp if you accept that our redemption lies in simply reaching out and helping one another.
http://www.asianage.com/columnists/mumbai-still-has-its-insaniyat-intact-269
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-terrorism-jihad/yakub-memon’s-hanging,-making-villain/d/104207