Amnesty India condemns Yakub Memon’s execution

The rejection of Memon’s curative petition, paving the way for his imminent execution, is disappointing and regressive step towards the continued use of death penalty in India, said Amnesty International India.

Yakub Abdul Razak Memon was convicted for his involvement in a series of bomb blasts that rocked Mumbai in March 1993, claiming 257 lives. He was arrested in 1994. In 2007, he was convicted and sentenced to death under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (TADA) Act, which enlists provisions incompatible to the international fair trial standards. The conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court in March 2013. Memon’s mercy petition to the President of India was rejected in April 2014.

“More than a dozen death sentences were commuted in progressive judgments by the Supreme Court last year. Today’s judgment, in contrast, regrettably puts India in opposition to the global trend towards moving away from the death penalty,” said Divya Iyer, Research Manager at Amnesty International India.

“Those who claim that hanging Yakub Memon will bring justice to the 1993 Mumbai blasts are mistaken. The suspected masterminds of the blasts have still not been located, arrested and brought to book. Serious questions have also been raised regarding Memon’s execution and whether it is guided by political motivations. According to media reports, he spent time in solitary confinement, which is unconstitutional. Lawmakers in India often find it convenient to hold up capital punishment as a symbol of their resolve to tackle crime and choose to ignore more difficult and effective solutions such as improving investigations, prosecutions and care for victims’ families,” she said.

There exists no reliable evidence that the threat of execution is more of a deterrent to crime than a prison sentence. This has been confirmed in multiple studies in many regions across the world, including by the United Nations.

The Justice Verma Committee, set up in 2012 to review laws against sexual assault, concluded that “there is considerable evidence that the deterrent effect of death penalty in serious crimes is actually a myth.”

“Authorities need to ensure certainty in detection, arrest and conviction for crimes, rather than focusing on the severity of punishment, which by itself has little deterrent effect,” said Iyer.

Death penalty in India is arbitrary, discriminatory and is often used disproportionately against the poor. A recent study conducted by students from the National Law University, Delhi, with the help of India’s Law Commission, found that over three-fourth of the prisoners, facing death row, were from economically weak backgrounds.

About 140 countries have abolished death penalty. Amnesty International’s annual report on death penalty in 2014 found that an alarming number of countries used it to tackle real or perceived threats to state security posed by terrorism, crime or internal instability.