SANTOKHI BELDAR Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Of these four appellants Chotka Sonar, has been convicted under Section 302, Indian Penal Code, and appellants, Santokhi Beldar, Dwarika Mahton and Mahabir Sanghai under Section 302/149 by the Additional Sessions Judge of Bhagalpur in part agreement with the assessors and all four have been sentenced to transportation for life.

(2.) The material facts of the case are these: a dead body without the head was found in Khusumaha village which is about six miles north-west of Amarpur Police Station in the Bhagalpur District on the 5 May last at a place in the village known as bahiar. The news spread in the village and Asharfi, chaukidar of Khusumaha went to tell Radhe another chaukidar of the same village about it. Radhe was not found at home; but his wife Mt. Kulho told Asharfi that her husband had gone out to village Pansalla during the night and had not returned home since. Asharfi then went to see the dead body and found that it was the dead body of this chaukidar Radhe. Mt. Kulho also went to the spot and recognized the corpse of her husband. She then went with Asharfi to Amarpur Police Station and lodged the first information. The Sub-Inspector came to the spot that afternoon and saw the dead body and on a further search, the head was found, he also found a broken . earthen pot lying in the bahiar which appeared to have blood stains as well as traces of burnt pieces of matting and bits of string. He stopped for the night in the village and early in the morning was told by Syed Abdul Aziz, the local tahsildar of the Banaili Raj in whose zamindari this village is, that his labourer Santokhi Beldar had confessed to him regarding the murder. The Sub-Inspector after examining Santokhi Beldar was then taken by the latter to his house where the Sub-Inspector examined the court-yard or ungan which appeared to have been recently washed and Santokhi produced for him a kuchia or knife and a small pitcher or labni which smelt of toddy. Next Santokhi took him out to a field about 200 paces south-east from his house and there he showed him a mouse-hole which was covered with clods in a field. The Sub-Inspector took some earth and straw from this hole; these were sent to the Chemical Examiner and were found to contain human blood. He also pointed out to the Sub-Inspector a pot or chuka which was at a short distance from the hole and this likewise was subsequently found by the Chemical Examiner to have stains of human blood.

(3.) Accused Santokhi Beldar was sent to Banka and his statement was recorded there by a Sub-Deputy Magistrate on the 9 May. The sum and substance of this confession was to the effect that on the Wednesday night in question Radhe came to his house for a smoke and decided to spend the night in his house. The three remaining appellants and four other persons, who have been acquitted, came to the house after that and said that they were going to kill Radhe. Santokhi interceded and remonstrated on his behalf but he received a cut in his hand from a bhujali and could do nothing. Then they surrounded Radhe, and Chotka Soner, appellant cut his throat and they took away the dead body and cut the head off. He accompanied them through fear and on his return he scraped off the bloodstains from his court-yard. His mother-in-law Surji was also sent up to the Magistrate in order to have her statement recorded under Section 164 on the same day and she stated that she had seen the two appellants, Dwarika Mahton and Mahabir Sanghai and some other men whom she could not identify, numbering four or five, killing Radhe in her house. It was about midnight, there was a tatti door separating her room from the room in which Radhe and the appellants were; she peeped through it and saw all this.