NEW DELHI —
India's Supreme Court Monday stayed the execution of a death row inmate convicted of masterminding the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai.
A two-judge bench stayed the hanging of Yakub Memon, and referred his case to the Constitution Bench, following a review petition by the convict against the death penalty given to him by an anti-terror court in 2007.
Memon, who was nabbed by the Indian police from
Nepal in 1994, has said in his review petition that he had already spent 20 years in prison since his arrest, a year after the serial blasts in which over 300 people were killed.
Indian President Pranab Mukherjee had earlier rejected his mercy plea.
Memon is the brother of fugitive terror mastermind Tiger Memon who was also sentenced to death in absentia by the anti-terror court in 2007. Underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, now believed to be in hiding in
Pakistan, was also sentenced to death for planning the attacks.
The Supreme Court had in 2013 upheld Memon's death penalty.
The 1993 Mumbai blasts were a series of 13 bomb explosions that took place on March 12, 1993. The coordinated attacks were said to be the most destructive bomb explosions in Indian history.
Executions are rare in
India, with the exceptions of two hangings in 2012 of 2008 Mumbai terror attacks convict Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab and Kashmiri fruit-seller Afzal Guru a year later for his role in the 2001 attacks on Indian Parliament.
