A plea for leniency from the grave: Deceased RAW official's op-ed makes a case for Yakub Memon

For Yakub Memon, the lone convict sentenced to death in the 1993 serial Mumbai blasts case, the Supreme Court has introduced what may be a final roadblock before his execution scheduled for 30 July. It on Friday agreed to hear his plea again on 27 July. The apex court’s decision comes even as there are multiple and rising views questioning the death sentence awarded to the former chartered accountant. And perhaps the most notable voice to now join the chorus of opposition is that of former Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) official, B Raman, who passed away in 2013. The former bureaucrat, who was vocal in his views on foreign policy and terrorism post-retirement, had reportedly written a critical piece for Rediff in 2007 when Memon was sentenced to death by a Terrorism and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (Tada) court. More importantly, in it, Raman confirms Memon’s version of the events that led to his arrest. [caption id=“attachment_2361146” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Ibnlive image[/caption] The op-ed confirms that Memon was indeed arrested in Kathmandu – as he has long claimed – even as official records state that he was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation in New Delhi. Raman also credits Memon with ensuring the return of the rest of his family to India via Dubai. Almost all members of the Memon family faced trial in the case. Yakub, who expected leniency for his cooperation, instead received the harshest punishment after being held guilty of being a part of the conspiracy to carry out the blasts that killed over 250 people. But after sending the piece to the publication, Rediff’s Sheela Bhatt says that Raman asked that the piece be held back in order to prevent it from influencing the trial against other accused persons in the case. It stayed that way until she got permission from Raman’s brother to publish it now. In his piece, Raman notes that in the course of his work at the counter-terrorism division of RAW between 1993 and 1994, he had dealt with the external aspects of the case. He describes in detail how Yakub had come to Kathmandu to meet a relative and lawyer when he was nabbed at the airport. The relative and lawyer, incidentally, had advised Yakub to stay in Pakistan. The op-ed also also highlights key mitigating factors that the prosecution had failed to highlight before the Tada court that sentenced the former chartered accountant to death. “The cooperation of Yakub with the investigating agencies after he was picked up informally in Kathmandu and his role in persuading some other members of the family to come out of Pakistan and surrender constitute, in my view, a strong mitigating circumstance to be taken into consideration while considering whether the death penalty should be implemented,” he noted in his piece. Raman had also said that he was ‘disturbed’ by the fact that the prosecution had instead sought the death penalty for Yakub in the trial court which was then upheld by the Supreme Court. “In normal circumstances, Yakub would have deserved the death penalty if one only took into consideration his conduct and role before July 1994. But if one also takes into consideration his conduct and role after he was informally picked up in Kathmandu, there is a strong case for having second thoughts about the suitability of the death penalty in the subsequent stages of the case,” he noted. ( Read the complete piece here) It is to be noted that the Supreme Court judgement which dismissed Yakub’s plea to commute his death sentence did consider the fact that he had co-operated with investigators, but rejected it as a mitigating factor to overturn the sentence. The apex court, while upholding the death penalty for Yakub, had said that as per the evidence on record, the former chartered accountant had been a prime conspirator in carrying out the blasts in 1993 and was heading the operation in the absence of Tiger Memon. “We are mindful of the fact that there is no direct act attributed to A-1 (Yakub) as far as parking of the explosives filled vehicle in different localities are concerned. But we should recollect, that if, not for the planning of conspirators for which A-1 (Yakub) was a party too, the explosives and ammunition required for the execution wouldn’t have entered into our country and as a consequence the execution itself wouldn’t have materialized,” the court noted. However, while the Supreme Court may have chosen to ignore the argument, Raman’s case presents an interesting point of debate. More so, as there’s an approver in the case who has been exonerated of all culpability due to his complete co-operation with the investigating team. The approver, best known as Badshah Khan after being renamed in S Hussain Zaidi’s book Black Friday, was a part of the conspiracy and had undergone training in Pakistan and even surveyed the sites that were to be bombed. Arrested after the blasts, he became an approver in the case in exchange for the case being dropped against him. Certainly, the refusal to offer Yakub at least some leniency raises the question of double standards. The execution of Yakub has been a contentious issue especially given he returned to India to face prosecution, the only person who is said to have been directly linked with the conspiracy to do so. A theory that even Yakub had put before the Supreme Court was the fact that the prosecution was seeking the harshest possible punishment for him only because authorities had failed to get their hands on his brother and Dawood Ibrahim. It remains to be seen as to whether Yakub’s last bid to stave off the execution on 27 July will be successful. But it is ironic indeed that one of the strongest arguments he can now wield will be the words of a dead RAW official.