India executes 1993 Mumbai bomb plotter

India has executed convicted bomb plotter Yakub Memon for his role in a series of co-ordinated attacks that killed hundreds of people in Mumbai in 1993, television stations reported.

Memon was hanged at Nagpur Central jail in the western state of Maharashtra in the early hours of Thursday, according to the NDTV and CNN-IBN news channels.

The Supreme Court heard Memon's last plea for a 14-day stay on his execution to mentally prepare himself and meet with family and rejected the plea, the last in a series of developments in which he fought to stay alive. He was hanged shortly before 7:00 am on the day of his 54th birthday.

Security across Mumbai has been beefed up to counter any outbreak of violence in the wake of the execution as several eminent Indians petitioned to stay Memon's execution citing procedural lapses and "disturbing aspects of this case which make the award of death sentence of Yakub Memon as grossly unfair, arbitrary and excessive."

(with the Associated Press)