Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray has blasted his long-time friend, Bollywood superstar Salman Khan, over his tweets, that were perceived as being in favour of Yakub Memon (some of which were withdrawn later), ahead of the execution. "Salman is a man without brains, while his father is a respectable man. He does not read newspapers and does not know the law and thus went on tweeting in his (Yakub's) favour. Then there are people who sent letters to the President seeking mercy for the traitor. How can anybody question a Supreme Court order?" he asked. Justifying his visit to the actor's residence after he was pronounced guilty in the hit-and-run case, Raj said he has very old family ties with his father Salim Khan and thus went there to be with him at the time of crisis. 

Days before Yakub was hanged, Salman had tweeted: "Been wanting to tweet this for 3 days and was afraid to do so but it involves a man's and his family. Don't hang brother hang the lomdi (fox) who ran away," he had posted. "One innocent man killed is killing the humanity," the actor tweeted. The “brother” was Yakub Memon while lomdi was Tiger Memon. Khan said he had been wanting to tweet about the issue for some days but was afraid. He had further tweeted - "We can die for our family. Tiger, your brother will be hanged for you in some days. Say something, make a statement or address that it was you. What kind of brother are you? Where are you hiding Tiger? Sharif Saab, I would request you to let us know about Tiger, if you have any information about him." After his tweets created a massive uproar, the actor had offered an 'unconditional' apology.