I am going to die, only a miracle can save me: Yakub Memon told a jail guard

 "My hanging has been politicised. I know that I am going to die. Only miracle can save me," Memon, finally hanged on Thursday morning, reportedly said.

The report on midday.com  says that Memon's remarks were made on Wednesday when the apex  court was deciding whether his death penalty had been correctly upheld by its judges. 

Later at night, in an unprecedented move a three-member Supreme Court bench sat to hear a plea made by Memon's lawyer and activists, but rejected it on the ground that  the convict had been offered enough time and opportunity to challenge his sentencing, and that the  last-minute petition was not valid.

That plea said that Memon's mercy petition had been rejected too quickly by President Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday, just hours after it was filed by the death row prisoner. 

But the Supreme accepted the government's contention that Memon's brother had filed a mercy plea last year, which had been rejected by the President and hence,  a 14-day waiting period between the rejection of a clemency appeal and the execution was not needed for Memon.

In 2007, Memon, a chartered accountant by profession, was convicted for financing the serial blasts in Mumbai in 1993 that killed 257 people, and injured nearly 700. 

Memon had left Mumbai just before the terror attack with his family. He was brought to a Mumbai court to face trial a year later.