Fake List of Politicians and Actors Linked to Yakub Memon's Mercy Petition

The claim carries only five names which were actually part of the mercy petition filed for Yakub Memon in 2015.

Fact-check: A viral claim falsely links names of 40 public personalities including politicians and actors with the mercy petition filed for Yakub Memon in 2015.

(Photo: Attered by The Quint)

A list of names of 40 public personalities from India is going viral to claim that they were a part of the mercy petition against the death sentence awarded by the Supreme Court for the 1993 Mumbai serial blast death row convict Yakub Memon.

The viral claim involves names of actors like Shah Rukh Khan, Saif Ali Khan and Aamir Khan, along with Opposition party leaders, some part of the newly-formed I.N.D.I.A alliance, like Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, former Chief Minister of Bihar Lalu Prasad Yadav, Chief Minister of Bihar Nitish Kumar, Member of Rajya Sabha Digvijay Singh, President of Samajwadi Party Akhilesh Yadav, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee, President of the Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee Sachin Pilot and Member of the Lok Sabha Asaduddin Owaisi, among others.

An archive can be seen here.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

(Archives of similar claims can be seen here and here.)

The truth: We found out that only five names from the viral claim were actually part of the original petition sent to the then President of India Pranab Mukherjee, whereas the rest of the 35 other names were falsely linked to the list.

• This petition dates back to 26 July 2015.

• After Memon’s mercy plea was rejected, he was hanged in Nagpur Central Jail on 30 July 2015.

How did we find out the truth?: We performed a relevant keyword search and came across several reports about the mercy petition.

• News outlets like The Indian Express, India Today and NDTV had shared reports in July 2015 carrying some of the prominent names from the petition.

• The list did not include all the names from the claim, it only matched five names - Brinda Karat, Prakash Karat, Shatrughan Sinha, Ram Jethmalani and Mahesh Bhatt.

• The petition included other names like MPs Mani Shankar Aiyar (Congress), Majeed Memon (NCP), Sitaram Yechury (CPM), D Raja (CPI), K T S Tulsi and H K Dua and T Siva (DMK), CPI(ML-Liberation) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, filmmakers and actors Naseeruddin Shah, M K Raina, and Tushar Gandhi, retired judges Panachand Jain, H S Bedi, P B Sawant, H Suresh, K P Siva Subramaniam, S N Bhargava,  K Chandru, and Nagmohan Das, lawyer Indira Jaising, academics Irfan Habib, Arjun Dev and N Jha and social activists Aruna Roy, Jean Dreze and John Dayal.

We found the original petition: The official website of Communist Party of India (Marxist) carried the original petition from 26 July 2015 which carried more than 200 names who signed the mercy plea for Memon.

• The list didn't match with 35 names from the viral post and only matched five names, as mentioned above.

• The petition had put forth a number of arguments against executing Memon, and instead giving him a life sentence.

The plea was filed on 26 July 2015.

(Source: official website of Communist Party of India (Marxist)/Screenshot)

More information about Memon's petitions: According to a report shared by The Caravan, there were six stages of litigation for Memon's case.

• These included the original appeal, a review petition, a second review petition, a curative petition, a writ petition challenging the warrant of execution of death sentence and proceedings to re-determine this writ petition.

• The Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) Court firsr sentenced Memon to death in 2007, but his brother Suleman filed a mercy petition with the President of India, which was rejected in April 2014.

• Memon went on to file a review petition that the Supreme Court dismissed on 9 April 2015.

• He then filed a curative petition on 22 May 2015, which got dismissed on 21 July 2015.

• Later on, he submitted a mercy petition to the governor of Maharashtra on 22 July 2015, and one to the president of India on 29 July 2015.

• Here, the three-judge bench decided on the challenge against Memon and he was hanged on 30 July 2015.

• The only mercy petition sent to the President of India signed by public personalities was on 26 July 2015, which the President rejected.

Conclusion: A viral claim falsely links the names of 35 public personalities including politicians and actors, with the mercy petition filed for Yakub Memon in 2015.

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