Court rejects attack plotter's final plea
India's Supreme Court yesterday turned down a final plea for mercy by Yakub Memon, who was found guilty of financing the deadly, clearing the way for his execution.
The governor of Maharashtra state has also turned down his mercy plea.
His last hope is a clemency plea pending before the president who had rejected a similar petition last month.
Earlier, the Maharashtra state authorities had set his execution for Thursday morning and Indian media reports say unless President Pranab Mukherjee intervenes, Memon will be hanged in the next few hours.
Yakub Memon had petitioned the Supreme Court to halt his hanging on the basis that his death warrant had been issued before all legal avenues to appeal were exhausted.
He was convicted of plotting a series of coordinated bomb attacks in Mumbai in 1993 that killed 257 people, the deadliest attacks ever to hit the country.
"(The) death warrant is legal and there is no legal infirmity in it," the court said in its ruling.
The top court had on July 21 rejected a final appeal by the 52-year-old, who has spent more than two decades in jail.
Eleven people have been convicted over the 1993 attacks, which targeted the Bombay Stock Exchange, the offices of Air India and a luxury hotel in India's commercial capital.
They were believed to have been staged by Mumbai's Muslim-dominated underworld in retaliation for anti-Muslim violence that killed more than 1,000 people.
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