LAWS(PVC)-1933-3-127

ASRAF ALI Vs. EMPEROR

Decided On March 15, 1933
ASRAF ALI Appellant
V/S
EMPEROR Respondents

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The accused before us are Asraf Ali and Ananta Kumar Sarkar. They have been convicted by the unanimous verdict of a jury of seven under Section 302 read with Section 109, I.P.C., and have been sentenced to death. We have before us a reference under Section 374, Criminal P.C., and an appeal by each of the two accused. Between 9 and 10 o clock on the night of Monday, 28 March 1932, in a village called Panchgaon, an old man named Kalachand Banerjee, a woman called Hiran Moyee and a small girl called Sulakshana, aged about three were hacked or stabbed to death in Kalachand's bari and his nephew's wife, Nagendrabala Debi, was very seriously injured by a sharp cutting weapon. She had an incised wound 7 long round the left shoulder joint cutting the head of the left humerus in two; she had an incised wound at the back of her right wrist and another on the palm of her right hand. The case for the prosecution is that the accused Asraf Ali inflicted these wounds with a big dao in the kitchen or cookshed, and that present with him at the time was the accused Ananta. The case depends upon the evidence of Nagendrabala identifying the accused as the persons who entered the kitchen and committed the assault.

(2.) The crime was not committed for any purpose of theft. As two of Kalachand's women-folk, including a small girl of three, were brutally killed, after Kalachand himself had been killed, and Nagendrabala had been savagely attacked, the crime had all the appearances of a crime of vengeance. From the first it was accordingly associated with the fact that Kalachand had assisted the police and had given evidence on behalf of the Crown in a case under Section 400, I.P.C. (a gang case) which had lasted from 1924 to 1926. A large number of dacoits were prosecuted in that case, among them being the present accused. Both received substantial sentences. Asraf Ali was released from jail in June 1931 having served his sentence; Ananta was released on 10 December 1931 before he had completed his sentence by reason that he was suffering from phthisis. For some months therefore before the crime both had been living in the village of Panchgaon. Ananta's home was very close to Kalachand s-apparently about five minute's walk away. Asraf Ali's home is a little further; the evidence is not very clear as to the distance but I find it described by a responsible police officer as about ten minutes walk from Kalachand s. The first information report was lodged at 7 a.m. on the morning after the occurrence, i.e., on 29 March and by next day (i.e. the 30 March) both the accused had been arrested. They, together with a few others, wore arrested on the strength of their connexion with the gang case.

(3.) Asraf Ali was described by the committing Magistrate, who may have accepted his own statement as being aged about 45 years. Before the Sessions Judge he gave his age as 50, but the learned Judge put him down as "about 35 or 40." Ananta was put down as about 65 by the committing Magistrate. Before the Sessions Judge he stated that he was 68, but the learned Judge put his age as "about 55." Asraf Ali is of course a Mahomedan and Ananta a Hindu.