Joining the debate in social and mainstream media, Bollywood superstar Salman Khan on Saturday came out against the death sentence handed out to Yakub Memon, calling him “innocent”.

Khan characterised Yakub’s death sentence as punishment for his brother Tiger Memon’s crimes. “Been wanting to tweet this for 3 days and was afraid to do so but it involves a man's family,” said Khan. He called for Tiger to be hanged instead, even petitioning Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to inform India if Tiger Memon is hiding in Pakistan.



 

The actor later retracted the tweets. But before he did that, the reaction on Twitter was swift. A few commended Khan for taking a bold stand:


 

Most people, though, were more critical. Many snarkily raised the fact that Khan had himself been convicted recently in a hit-and-run case:





 

Khan, though, isn’t the only one to point out glaring inconsistencies in the Yakub Memon case. Here are some others who have weighed in:

1) B Raman, head of the Pakistan desk at the Research and Analysis Wing and the person who oversaw Yakub Memon’s surrender, wrote about the “strong case” against Yakub’s death penalty.

2) Former Supreme Court judge Jarjit Singh Bedi describes his “sense of outrage” at Yakub Memon's treatment by the Indian authorities.

3) Maseeh Rahman, the Mumbai bureau chief of India Today at the time of the serial bombings in March 1993, talks about the circumstances of Yakub’s return.

4) Investigative journalist and the author of Black Friday, S Hussain Zaidi points out how Yakub Memon is paying for his brother’s sins even after exposing Pakistani involvement in the Mumbai blasts.

5) Jyoti Punwani argues that hanging a man who surrendered draws our attention to the miscarriage of justice in the Bombay riots.

6) R Jagannathan argues that the "travesty of justice" in Yakub's case is another example of of how a "weak [Indian] state has chosen to show strength against the weak by indirectly winking at injustice".