MINGULAR MALLIK Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellants have been convicted under Section 302/34, I. P. C. , and each of them has been sentenced to imprisonment for life. They are Kondhas. The deceased was a Pana. All the four belong to adjacent villages within a redius of half a mile. The deceased and the accused committed theft of gold and silver ornaments from the house of P. W. 1. The deceased divulged this fact to P. W. 1 alleging that the accused had kept the ornaments. P. W. 1 lodged information with the police on 15-7-1964. In the morning of 16-7-1964, the accused invited the deceased from his house to take the meat of pig. He was led inside a forest at kamdaguda and was killed there with an axe (MO. I ). The head and the body were completely severed and were recovered from two different pits at some distance from the very forest. The defence is one of denial.

(2.) THE learned Sessions Judge, on discussion of the evidence, held that the deceased was murdered by the accused and that the head and the trunk recovered belonged to the deceased.

(3.) THAT the deceased was killed with his head and body completely severed is not disputed before us. The evidence of the doctor (P. W. 11), who held the postmortem examination, is that the head and the body belonged to the same person. There were a number of injuries. The neck injury, which severed the head from the trunk, was possible with the axe like (MO. I) by multiple strokes. On the materials on record it is established beyond reasonable doubt that death was homicidal.