Yakub: Victim or a Victimiser

The hanging of Yakub Abdul Razak Memon in Nagpur Central Jail a little before 7 am on July 30 has created an epoch in the history of Indian democracy. For days, newspapers and social media were overflowing with mixed reactions. Many penned articles against the Special Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (TADA) court’s order to execute the death warrant against the terror convict over his involvement in the 1993 Mumbai bombings; even as Yakub’s mercy petitions were rejected by the President and the Maharashtra Governor. 

Not only the decision of the Supreme Court was highly condemned but unprecedented pressure was mounted on judiciary that the Supreme Court was opened for judges to hear the final petition of Yakub at 3 am on the scheduled day of hanging. Post midnight, some activists and a battery of lawyers had even moved from outside the home of Chief Justice of India Hl Dattu to the Tughlak Road residence of Supreme Court judge Deepak Misra. Some activists were even protesting. But the judges — after a marathon brainstorming to ensure all legal  remedies have been exhausted — rejected Yakub’s appeal to stop his execution. Interestingly, Justice Deepak Misra got a death threat on August 7. Readers are not gullible to guess the connection between his judgement on Yakub’s last plea to spare his life, and the death threat a week later. 

The high security arrangement all over the country on the day of the execution of the condemned terrorist and the number of people who gathered for his last funeral have been overwhelming.For the last 15 days prior to Yakub’s hanging, articles arguing against the execution of Yakub appeared in The Hindu every day. But the latest in the loop was a column from the readers’ editor written by AS Paneerselvan titled, “Undeterred by malice”. The most highlighted part of the article was “opposition to the death penalty has been State policy of this newspaper as far back as the Bhagat Singh trial.”  The Hindu claims that they have taken “consistent position” on the issue of death penalty. The reader’s editor in his column compares the opposition of Bhagat Singh’s execution with its opposition to the execution of the murderer of hundreds of innocent people. 

Before comparing Bhagat Singh with Yakub, the writer must have realised that Bhagat Singh didn’t throw a bomb in the Assembly with an intention to kill, but to make his voice heard. He didn’t run away, instead he surrendered. later his trial was not only unfair but his execution was also made a day before the scheduled date. While Yakub killed 257 people and fled the country with his family ensuring their safety, exhausted all legal options, executed on a scheduled date with prior information, given new clothes, food and everything which he deprived the victims of the multiple bomb blasts that wreaked havoc in Mumbai. 

What he has done is just an act of religious fundamentalism. Yakub, despite being a highly educated and a rich Indian, chose the path of terrorism. It’s always argued that since the minority communities face discrimination they tend to get deviated from the mainstream society and get involved in terrorism. But what explains Yakub’s cold blooded crimeIJ He never faced any kind of discrimination either from the State and or the masses. If he had any issue with the State, given his social status, he could have taken legal recourse. 

According to National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), more than 2,000 people have been awarded death sentence since 1995, among which approximately 22 people have been executed. The question is how often the daily has taken an initiative to write against the execution of those 21 convicts. Evidently the effort is negligible compared to the recent write-ups against the execution of Yakub. If opposing death sentence had been the “consistent position” of the newspaper, then they should have opposed the executions with equal vigour. Though the national daily had published a few articles when Afzal Guru and Kasab were being executed, it ignored the case of Dhananjoy Chatterjee, who was executed in 2004. If the intensity of the crime committed by Dhananjoy did not deserve anything less than a death penalty, so does the crime of Yakub, Afzal and Kasab.  

Most of the columnists have accused the Indian Government of not being lenient to Muslims while pronouncing death penalty. The debate is why they are creating uproar when a convict, who is incidentally a Muslim, is executed. The law is the same for all and whoever is guilty should be punished irrespective of their class, caste and religion. We should stop politicising every incident lending it a communal colour. 

The stance taken by some of Parliamentarians is similarly questionable. While the Parliamentarians who belong to a party be it Shashi Tharoor from the Congress, D Raja, Sitaram Yechury and Prakash Karat from the left parties, Shatrughn Sinha and Varun Gandhi from the BJP, and many others, stated their views against the execution of Yakub, did not oppose the death penalty for the accused who attacked Parliament. 

It has been argued that criminals or terrorists are not born in isolation. They are the products of unjust society. True crime is a social problem. It cannot be denied that there are loopholes, corruption and politically vested interests which sometimes mar the endeavours of the Government. But why blame the entire nationIJ Corruption is not religion specific and it affects all. One can argue the case of Salman Khan, who is a Muslim, is being soft-pedalled, whereas Sanjay Dutt, being a Hindu, has been imprisoned. The entire nation is mourning the death of APJ Abdul Kalam, whose identity is not confined within his religion. He had long surpassed it. 

People do suffer in riots. As a citizen of the nation, we highly condemn such narrow and dirty politics. Some politicians still believe in divide and rule and they take advantage of such conflicts. But the question is who initiates such riotsIJ Is it the common peopleIJ No. But terrorism always targets common people who have nothing to do with the policies and politics and they are as exploited as the terrorists think they are. How far is it justified to avenge on themIJ The metals do not pierce the body asking his/her religion. We all have grievances but that doesn’t permit us to kill innocent people. Terrorism is a crime against humanity, against the nation and hence cannot be forgiven. 

The decision taken in the Supreme Court is neither taken in haste nor without serious contemplation. Unless and until the crime is considered rarest of the rare, the Supreme Court does not pronounce death sentence. If it has done so followed by the mercy plea being rejected by the President then it is obvious that the court has enough evidence against the accused and his/her crime falls under the rarest of the rare category.  Democracy gives us a right to express our opinions to ensure better functioning of our society and even to bring improvement in the existing laws. But this right cannot be used as a rider. Had the court been biased against Muslims, it would not have spared the bomb planters. The court has used its intelligentsia to pronounce the highest punishment to the conspirator rather than their tutored agents. 

One may argue that the articles and columns published in a newspaper are personal views of the writers and hence do not signify the position taken by the newspaper itself. But it’s an open secret how articles are selected to be published in a newspaper. The publication of an article in a newspaper is a complete discretion of the concerned editors who often get influenced due to various reasons, be it political or economic. So when articles on a particular viewpoint are carefully chosen and published during a particular time, it at least suggests the political stance of the newspaper.  

Every position taken by a newspaper or an intellectual or a politician or anyone else has its importance given the context and time frame. Some dailies might have carried columns and articles against the capital punishment but since they remained almost silent during the execution of Dhananjay, they never seemed to favour him. Whereas all the recent articles written and published seem to favour Yakub more than the concern of abolishing death penalty itself. 

Basis of clemency

The entire debate in favour of the mercy petition of Yakub is based on two prominent arguments: The article of B Raman in which he favoured leniency for Yakub as he supposedly co-operated with the Indian agency after his arrest, and the justification of capital punishment. Interestingly while B Raman and the agency he belonged to have always drawn flak from the leftists, now all of a sudden the perception has changed, he is being quoted to formulate their views. 

Sheela Bhatt, who claims to be in touch with B Raman when he was alive, has published reports in two parts, “The strange case of Yakub Memon”, and “Why Yakub Memon’s death sentence is surprising”. She has claimed at rediff.com that B Raman had sent a note to her after sending his article which said, ‘I wrote this, but I am having second thoughts. Don’t use it. Others might escape as a result of this article if the higher court holds that the entire case has been vitiated as a result of the prosecution concealing a material fact from the sentencing court. R’.”

The note clearly indicates that B Raman himself didn’t want this article to be published in the interest of the country as he wanted to give a second thought to the same. However some excerpts from his article were published by rediff.com recently, when B Raman is not there to defend the opinion. “He had come to Kathmandu secretly from Karachi to consult a relative and a lawyer on the advisability of some members of the Memon family, including himself, who felt uncomfortable with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, returning to India and surrendering to the Mumbai police. The relative and the lawyer advised him against surrender due to a fear that justice might not be done to them. They advised Yakub to go back to Karachi. Before he could board the flight to Karachi, he was picked up by the Nepal police on suspicion, identified and rapidly moved to India.”

The excerpts from B Raman’s article, if believed, manifest that Yakub didn’t surrender before the Indian agencies; rather it was a circumstantial success of the Indian agencies. The facts from B Raman’s article are completely in contrast with the Indian activist lawyers who claim, on the basis of B Raman’s article that the case of Yakub should be dealt with leniency as he surrendered to Indian authorities.  

The Indian Government does have shown leniency to those who it thinks were misguided or misled. Illiterate and uninformed people coming from poor background are vulnerable to tutored ideologies. But educated and financially, emotionally and socially secured persons cannot be considered as innocent. They know exactly what they want and what they do. 

Even for a moment just for the sake of argument it is believed that he was innocent and he paid for his brother’s sin as claimed by the so-called activists and his family, why did he flee with his family to PakistanIJ Why did he not inform police if he had any clue about the blastIJ Why did he remain silentIJ Why did he let so many innocent people die and suffer irreparable injuriesIJ Articles published on the day of his execution in the Press describe the last few hours of Yakub’s life. He was given a chance to express his last wish and say goodbye to his family. He knew that he would die. What about those hundreds of people who were even denied their right to die a peaceful deathIJ A politician has even made an appeal to offer Yakub’s wife seat in the Rajya Sabha or Assembly House. 

What about those thousands of families that were completely destroyed because of the ghastly blastsIJ Did politicians, intellectuals, and liberals ever try to reach out to themIJ What about those police personnel who died while either fighting against these social evils or arresting themIJ They would risk their life to get hold of them, the case would drag on for several years and finally when the judgment is pronounced some intellectuals would shout for the convicts to be freed. Is this what justice meanIJ Thousands of people gathered near Yakub’s home the day he was executed to express solidarity with the family. If these thousands would have stood beside the blast victims, things would have been different! 

(Anish Gupta and Aaleya Giri teach Economics and English respectively at Delhi University. They can be reached at pioneer.article@gmail.com. Views expressed here are personal.)