Yakub Memon hanged in Nagpur, to be buried in Mumbai

Nagpur/Mumbai, July 30: Yakub Abdul Razzak Memon, convicted in the March 12, 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, was hanged till death at Maharashtra's Nagpur Central Jail on Thursday morning, officials said. He was sent to the gallows -- on his 54th birthday on Thursday -- after several of his court appeals and clemency petitions were rejected by various courts, including the Bombay High Court, the Supreme Court, the Maharashtra governor and the president of India. Memon was hanged at 6.35 a.m. A medical team at the jail pronounced him dead a short while later, at 7.01 a.m. Later, his body was sent for an autopsy in the jail hospital by a medical team from a Nagpur government hospital, before being cleared for the last rites. Initially, the jail authorities were not inclined to hand over the body and planned to perform the last rites in an isolated spot in the jail campus. After the hanging, Memon's brother Sulaiman submitted an application to the jail authorities, demanding handing over of the body to enable them to perform the last rites in Mumbai. The request was immediately processed and permission - with stringent conditions - was granted and the body handed over. It was taken to Nagpur airport and was flown in an air ambulance for the funeral rites scheduled on Thursday evening. Mumbai police have deployed tight security in Mahim area where the Memon's home is located and at other sensitive places in the city and the state. Chief Minister Devednra Fadnavis will make a statement in the Maharashtra Legislature later in the day.