DARPAN POTDARIN Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is the appeal by a woman named Darpan Potdarin (aged between 50 and 55 years) who has been convicted and sentenced to death by the Sessions Judge of Bhagalpur sitting in the Santal Parganas for the murder of her daughter Titwa (aged about 24 years),

(2.) In the early hours of the morning of 19 February last, the Sub-Inspector (P.W. 11) stationed at the police station of Sarath in the district of Dumka was awakened by a chaukidar Raghoo Mirdha (P.W. 10) of village Dhoro Dumar, about three miles from the thana. The chaukidar said that there had been a murder in his village. The Sub-Inspector came out and saw a girl lying on a cot with bleeding injuries. He asked her who were her assailants, but she could not speak. There were also present the accused Darpan and some villagers of whom four have been called as witnesses; that is to say, Barjoo Poddar (P.W. 6), Muhammad Hakeem Mirza (P.W. 7), and the before-mentioned chaukidar Raghoo Mirdhan (P.W. 24).

(3.) In addition to these, other Potdars (men) are said to have been present and also two persons Sakroo Mahto and Loku Raut. The accused Darpan Potdarin was questioned by the Sub-Inspector and her statement was taken down and lodged as a first information. The first information however does not embody the complete statement of Darpan, for as will be shown later, she made additional statements to the Sub-Inspector after the first information report. She stated that she was the wife of Bhagirath Poddar (P.W. 9), that she had come with certain villagers (whose names I have mentioned) and her daughter who was lying wounded on the cot. She said that on the previous night she and her daughter after taking their meal were Bleeping on separate cots on the southern verandah of their house, that her youngest son Jiblal (P.W. 4) aged ten years was sleeping with her and that the daughter Titwa was sleeping with her own child aged two years; that after the moon had set, she (the informant) went into the courtyard for natural purpose and then heard her daughter crying out ?mother, mother, I am killed, I am killed . She ran to the verandah and saw two men running away and passing out through the western wall of the compound in front; that she lighted a lamp and found that her daughter was wet with blood, with her neck and cheek out, and that she could not speak. That she and her son raised a cry and the villagers including the chaukidar came up and saw what had happened. That her daughter's son Ganesh Poddar (not called as a witness) had gone away on the morning of the day before to celebrate the sun god festival at village Sirsa (which is 7 or 8 miles from this village) where her eldest son lives and works as a goldsmith. That the informant's husband had also gone to Sirsa at noon of the day before. That she suspected that someone from the village had committed the crime but she could not recognize the men whom she saw running away. The Sub- Inspector noted also that the chaukidar had found a goldsmith's iron anvil saying that this was found near the daughter's cot. It bore no blood stains, but the Sub- Inspector took it and kept it.