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Asaduddin Owaisi says Kodnani and others should also get death

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asad-owaisi-on-memon

New Delhi: A political war of words erupted on Thursday over the execution of 1993 Mumbai blast convict Yakub Memon, with a section of opposition leaders speaking against the death sentence.

Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh fired the first salvo, saying that the BJP- led government should show “similar commitment” in all cases of terror as it showed in the case of Yakub Memon.

“I hope similar commitment of the government and the judiciary would be shown in all cases of terror, irrespective of their caste, creed and religion,” he said in a tweet following Memon’s execution in the Nagpur central jail on Thursday morning.

Party colleague and former union minister Shashi Tharoor said he was “saddened” by Memon’s execution.

“Saddened by news that our government has hanged a human being. State-sponsored killing diminishes us all by reducing us to murderers too,” Tharoor tweeted.

“There is no evidence that death penalty serves as a deterrent, to the contrary in fact. All it does is exact retribution, unworthy of a government,” the Thiruvananthapuram parliamentarian said.

“I’m not commenting on the merits of a specific case; that’s for the Supreme Court to decide. Problem is death penalty in principle and practice,” he added.

Communist Party of India (CPI) leader D Raja, meanwhile, said that the death penalty should be done away with in the country.

“India should say an emphatic no to capital punishment…. It does not mean we do not have sympathy with those (blast victims’) families, but by snatching away one life will not bring back all those lives,” Raja said.

All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen leader and Hyderabad parliamentarian Asaduddin Owaisi said the government should ensure death sentence in all similar cases.

“Death sentence should also be given to Babu Bajrangi, Maya Kodnani, Col. Purohit and Swami Aseemanand,” he said.

While Babu Bajrangi and Maya Kodnani are accused in the Gujarat riots, Col. Purohit and Swami Aseemanand are accused in the Malegaon blast.

The ruling BJP slammed the leaders opposed to the hanging. Tharoor and Digvijaya Singh were forsaken by the Congress as well, which said it was their “personal views”.

Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the views were that of the leaders concerned and not of the Congress.

Former home secretary and BJP parliamentarian R K Singh said those making such comments did not have national interests on their minds.

“These people don’t think about national interest. Whether he (Yakub) had to be hanged or not was not to be decided by the government but the court, and the president uses his judgment after that…,” he said.

Minister of state for parliamentary affairs, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, said justice had been done.

“Justice has been done; this increased the people’s faith in the judicial process. He got two decades to prove his innocence, and he was proven guilty,” he said.

Yakub Abdul Razzak Memon, convicted in the March 12, 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, was hanged at Maharashtra’s Nagpur central jail on Thursday morning.

(IANS)

Modi saved Kodnani, Bajrangi from the noose, Asaduddin Owaisi says

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Asaduddin Owaisi

Hyderabad: AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi alleged that the then Narendra Modi government in Gujarat had asked the prosecution not to press for death sentence of former minister Mayaben Kodnani and Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi, convicted in 2002 post-Godhra riot case.

The Hyderabad Lok Sabha MP questioned whether those responsible for killing people during riots should get death penalty.

“Kodnani and Babu Bajrangi were convicted by a court which sentenced them to life imprisonment in connection with the killing of 92 persons. The prosecution wanted capital punishment. But Modi, who was then Gujarat chief minister, asked prosecution not to appeal against the ruling (in HC) and let the punishment be life sentence,” the All-India Majlis-e- Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader alleged.

“Shouldn’t those who killed 92 persons get death sentence?” Owaisi asked.

He was addressing a public meeting here Saturday night on the occasion of 7th death anniversary of Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi, former president of AIMIM.

During his speech, Asaduddin, who had recently suggested that 1993 Mumbai blasts convict Yakub Memon was awarded capital punishment because of his religion, read out a media report against the death penalty.

“Is it not true that Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal had met then President Pratibha Patil with a mercy petition seeking clemency for Rajoana (assassin of former Punjab CM Beant Singh)?” he said.

Asaduddin challenged the BJP, which shares power in Punjab with Shiromani Akali Dal, to hang the killers of Beant Singh.

The AIMIM leader said Babri Masjid was demolished in 1992 but that case is still dragging on.

(PTI)

Judge who convicted Kodnani, Babu Bajrangi gets 22 threat letters

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jyotsna-yagnik

Ahmadabad: Jyotsana Yagnik, the special judge who convicted and handed life terms to former Gujarat minister and BJP leader Maya Kodnani, former Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi and 30 others in the 2002 massacre of 97 Muslims in Naroda Patiya, has received at least 22 threat letters and “blank phone calls” at her home since the August 2012 verdict.

Sixty-two-year-old Yagnik, who has since retired, has informed the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) about the threat letters and phone calls.

Her security cover has been scaled down to Y category from the Z-plus she was granted as Principal City Civil and Sessions Judge in Ahmedabad and she is said to have taken up the matter with the government.

Sources said Yagnik, who retired a few months after the Naroda Patiya massacre case verdict, has been receiving these letters — most are anonymous but one carries the letterhead of a private organisation.

In the letters, she has been threatened over the verdict in the massacre case, the sources said, adding that she has also been receiving “blank phone calls” at night.

Worried about her safety and that of her family, Yagnik informed the SIT.

Yagnik, who now heads a law institute on the Sarkhej-Gandhinagar highway, said: “Yes, I have been receiving threat letters and have informed the SIT in a letter I wrote to them.” She declined to speak on the contents of the “threat letters”, the nature of the threat or when she wrote to the SIT.

When his comments were sought, SIT convenor and Additional Director General of Police Ashish Bhatia said that in the last six- eight months, he had not come across threat letters to any judge, including Yagnik. “I don’t know if she received (the letters) before that,” Bhatia said.

Asked if the SIT had received any communication from Yagnik about the threat perception, Bhatia said: “Six to eight months ago, the government scaled down her security category from Z-plus to Y. At that time, she had represented to the government to step up the security cover. However, the security category has been maintained at Y and her request is pending before the government.”

A K Malhotra, SIT officer and a retired DIG, said he had “heard” about the threat letters and calls to Yagnik but did not details.

On August 29, 2012, Yagnik delivered the Naroda Patiya case order, convicting 32 people, among them Kodnani and Babu Bajrangi, for their roles in the massacre. Bajrangi was sentenced to life imprisonment till death by Yagnik.

On Kodnani, this is what the judge said: “… it stands proved that A-37 (Maya Kodnani) was not a member of the unlawful assembly but was a kingpin and one of the principal conspirators”.

Sentenced to life in jail, Kodnani was released on bail by the Gujarat High Court in July last year. On April 23 this year, Bajrangi was granted bail for three months after he claimed he was turning blind.

(Agencies)

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