More than seven years after the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts convict Yakub Abdul Razzak Memon was hanged to death, a fierce political controversy broke out on Thursday over the “beautification” of his grave at the Bada Kabristan at Marine Lines in south Mumbai.
Hours after the Mumbai police disconnected the power supply to the lighting arrangements around Memon’s spruced up grave amid speculation that it was being converted into a “mazar” (mausoleum), the ruling BJP and Opposition Congress and Shiv Sena traded charges over the beautification of the questionable grave.
During the Covid-19 period, Memon’s burial site got a face-lift, with the place converted into a marble grave with lighting arrangements around it. Memon — who was the lone death row convict in the 1993 serial blasts that had left 257 persons dead and 713 others injured —was hanged to death at the Nagpur Central Prison on July 30, 2015, thus bringing relief to the families of the victims of the first-ever major act of terror witnessed by the country.
Memon was executed two hours after a three-member bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Justice Dipak Misra, dismissed his plea for a stay on the death warrant served on him by a TADA court in Mumbai.
After a post-mortem, Memon’s body was later handed over to his brother Suleiman and cousin Usman, who took the body by an Indigo flight from Nagpur to Mumbai. Memon’s body was later buried at the Bada Kabrastan at Marine Lines in south Mumbai at around 5.30 pm.
Incidentally Bada Qabrastan where Memon has been buried, is also the final resting place of Bollywood legends Suraiya, Mehboob Khan, Nargis Dutt, Ismail Merchant, Shyama and ex-smuggler-turned-politician Haji Mastan.