New Delhi (AFP) - Bollywood
superstar Salman Khan urged India's top court Sunday to spare the life
of a convicted bomb plotter due to be hanged this week, declaring him
innocent and sparking a political furore.
The Supreme
Court is expected on Monday to hear a last-ditch appeal from Yakub
Memon, convicted of being a key plotter of a series of bomb blasts that
killed hundreds in Mumbai two decades ago -- the deadliest such attacks
in India's history.
The court had last week rejected what was
believed at the time to be a final appeal from Memon, paving the way for
his execution on Thursday after more than two decades in jail.
But
his lawyers lodged the last-minute appeal, saying his execution date of
July 30 had been set unlawfully back in April, before all legal avenues
to appeal were exhausted.
Khan, a hugely popular actor who was
himself convicted in May of a deadly hit-and-run accident, described
Memon, an accountant by profession, as innocent, sparking protests
outside his house.
"One innocent man killed is killing the humanity," Khan said on Twitter where he has 13.1 million followers.
"Get Tiger, hang him.
Parade him not his brother," Khan said referring to Memon's brother
Tiger, whom police say masterminded the attacks and who is still on the
run.
The actor later retracted
the comments after uproar from the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP), the opposition and a prosecutor involved in the
case.
"The Supreme Court gave
its verdict on hard core evidence and none of us are in position to
undermine the verdict," said a BJP spokeswoman, Shaina NC.
The
attacks are a religiously contentious issue in India because they are
believed to have been staged by Mumbai's Muslim-dominated underworld in
retaliation for anti-Muslim violence that killed more than 1,000 people.
The
Bombay Stock Exchange, the offices of Air India and a luxury hotel were
among the targets of the March 1993 blasts, which killed 257 people in
India's commercial capital.
Eleven people have been convicted over the attacks, but alleged
masterminds Tiger and Mumbai gang boss Dawood Ibrahim have not been
caught.
Dozens of angry
protesters, some waving BJP flags, converged outside the star's house in
Mumbai, demanding he apologise to the victims' families.
The
actor said on Twitter he was retracting the comments because they have
the potential to "create misunderstanding", adding "I respect all
faiths".
The furore came as a
petition signed mainly by lawyers and politicians was given to Indian
President Pranab Mukherjee urging clemency, partly on the basis that
Yakub Memon has been languishing in jail for more than 20 years, the
Press Trust of India news agency said.
A
former Supreme Court judge, Harjit Singh Bedi, also said the court
should take notice of reports Memon had cooperated with investigators
and returned voluntarily from Pakistan where he fled after the blasts.
In
a letter in the Sunday Express newspaper, Bedi said the court should
examine whether these count as mitigating circumstances and refer the
case back to the trial court for consideration.
