PARAMBAN MAMMADU Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The four applts & three others who were acquitted by the lower Ct were charged by the Ses J. of South Malabar under Section 120B read with Section 302, I. P. C., of conspiring with P. W. 10 to commit the murder of one Ramasimhan. There was also a charge under Section 148 of being armed with dangerous weapons & rioting. They were further charged under four separate counts for the murder of the said Ramaslmhan, his brother Narasimhan, the wife of Narasimhan, & one Raju Iyer, a Brahmin cook of Ramasimhan. These four persons will be referred to during the course of the judgment as deceased Nos. 1 to 4 respectively. The learned Judge found accused 1 only guilty of conspiracy & the four applts guilty under Sections 147 & 34, read with Section 302, I. P. C. on all the four counts. He sentenced the four applts to death &, as already stated, acquitted the other three.

(2.) The motive for the offence is said to have been the enmity borne by the Moplah community in general & the seven accused & P. W. 10 in particular against Ramasimhan & his brother, deceased 2 because they had renounced ISlam & allowed themselves to be converted to Hinduism. Narasimhan had subsequently been elevated to Nambudiri rank & had been accepted by the Nambudiri community as one of their number; & to him in marriage was, given the daughter of P. W. 26, a girl of 15 years of age, who was with her husband at the time of the murder & shared his fate. After deceased 1 had been converted from Islam to Hinduism, he diverted the large sums of money that he was accustomed to contribute to Muslim charities & spent them on Hindu charities. In particular, he renovated a Hindu temple in, the vicinity & was responsible for restoring regular worship there. He began a diligent, study of the Hindu scriptures & was studying the Bhagvad Gita, & had perpetually with him, P. W. 25, a Nambudir, to teach mantrams to deceased 2. He had moreover sent his two sons to Delhi to be instructed & brought up in the Hindu religion. All this, the prosecution say, gave rise to a great deal of enmity against him among Muslims & specific instances have been spoken to in the evidence in which Muslims were heard denouncing very severely deceased 1 & even threatening his life.

(3.) Ex. P. 60 gives an accurate idea of the bungalow of Ramasimhan, by name "Malaramba Bungalow". The main entrance to the bungalow was on the eastern side. To enter the house one has to pass through a door situate on the eastern side of a porch, which is the entrance to the bungalow. Just inside that door were lying deceased 1 & P. W. 24, a boy kept by deceased 1 to massage him. This witness was lying on a mat (M. O. 17), which, assumes some importance because on it was found a foot-print; & P. W. 25 lay on another mat (M. O. 18) which is important for the same reason. From the verandah one can enter the room marked "B" on the plan & from that central room one can pass to rooms north & south. Immediately to the north of that central room was a room in which was lying a child of P. W. 26, the mother of deceased 3. Still north of that room again on a cot were lying the deceased 2 & 3. To the south of the central room were lying P. W. 26 & two of her children. To the west of this series of rooms which run north to south is a verandah, from whicn is a passage way to the west leading into the dining hall & the kitchen. The western verandah of the main building was separated from this passage way by a door which was said to have been fastened on the night of the offence, as was the main entrance at the east. If those doors were secured, then, apparently, the house could only be entered by breaking open those doors. If one passed through the door separating the western verandah from the passage way, one passed first into the dining hall, where were sleeping deceased 4 & his assistant, P. W. 22. To the west of the main hall was a kitchen in which P. W. 22 subsequently took refuge.