Yakub Memon hanging: For neighbours, a prison that will never look the same again

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“It’s a strange feeling to absorb what has taken place in the prison today. In all the six years we have lived here, we never quite thought of the prison across the road as something that is disturbing. Today I am not so sure,” says Anita Wanchurkar who lives five floors below and whose balcony too stares directly into the prison.

The body of 1993 Mumbai blast convict Yakub Memon’s was carried to the airport in an ambulance after he was hanged at Nagpur Central Jail on Thursday morning. (Source: Express photo by Vasant Prabhu)

“Since this is a VIP road we have seen many personalities such as Sonia Gandhi, Narendra Modi and Pranab Mukherjee among others in their convoys passing by. At such times there is considerable police bandobast. But there has never been anything like this,’’ says S Venugopal, a banker, who lives on the fourth floor, referring to the melee of OB vans, huge crowds and hundreds of police personnel that have lined the road below since the past three days and nights.

Yakub Memon’s body was handed over to his family after the execution. Later his body was flown to Mumbai by an Indigo flight. (Source: Express photo by Vasant Prabhu)

Deepak Nilawar, whose bungalow shares a wall with the building, also bang opposite the prison gates, got himself involved in the proceedings. With many of the television crews using his compound for their camera stands and wires, he helped set up chairs and organised tea for them.

On Thursday morning the builder and president of the Vidarbha independence movement even lent his Audi equipped with a sunroof to a TV crew, on their request, as it chased the ambulance that came out of the prison carrying Yakub Memon’s body.

They travelled almost halfway to the airport before they were stopped and the ambulance sped away.