EMPEROR Vs. AFTAB MOHDKHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) We are dealing in this case with two appeals (Nos. 300 and 312 of 1938 respectively) under Section 417, Criminal P.C., and one application for revision (No. 296 of 1938), all presented by, or at the instance of, the Local Government. The Appeal No. 300 of 1938 is an appeal in which the fifty-seven respondents, all of whom were acquitted, were upon their trial before the learned Sessions Judge of Bulandshahr. The Appeal No. 312 of 1938, involves eight respondents three of whom were convicted upon charges in connexion with the incident at the temple which we shall mention later and five of whom were convicted upon charges in connexion with the incidents in the bazaar which we shall also deal with. The Revision Application No. 296 of 1938 involves as respondents the same eight men who are respondents in Appeal No. 312 of 1938 and asks for a revision of sentences passed upon them in respect of certain charges in respect of which they were convicted at the trial.

(2.) It will be convenient if we begin by setting out as shortly as we can a narrative of the events which led to the trial in question. The case, which was tried by the learned Sessions Judge in November 1937, has become known as the Amarpur dacoity case. Amarpur is a village or a small town in the Bulandshahr district and seems to be one of the twelve villages which go under the collective name of "Bara Basti." The twelve villages adjoin each other within an area of some seven square miles. They contain a cosmopolitan population of Pathans and other Mussalmans and Vaishes and other Hindus. The particular town of Amarpur possesses a population of a little over two thousand made up, as far as we can gather, of about eight hundred Pathans, eight hundred other Mussalmans, three hundred Vaishes and some three hundred other Hindus.

(3.) The learned Sessions Judge has been at considerable pains and we hesitate to say that we do not think him right in having done so, to investigate the exact relations between the Hindu and Mahomedan populations of the place, for, it is necessary at the outset to say that the conflict out of which these proceedings have arisen was one which, if not communal, in the strict sense, was, at any rate, one between Mahomedans on the one side and Hindus on the other side. With very few exceptions, all the hundred and twenty men who were tried by the learned Sessions Judge, the appeals of many of whom are now before us, were Mahomedans, while it will be seen from the evidence, when we come to deal with it, that all the victims of the disturbance which took place were Hindus. The learned Judge was therefore probably right to devote considerable attention to the relations which existed in the town between the two communities. He has found a number of circumstances which might be supposed to afford grounds for ill feeling between them. It appears that the commerce of the place was principally in the hands of the Vaishes who possessed between twenty-five and thirty shops, while only three or four belonged to the Mahomedans. In addition the Vaishes carried on a flourishing money lending business in the course of which many, if not most, of the Mahomedans and other non-Vaishes of the town had become obliged to them. The learned Judge has found that for the past few years there had been a change, inasmuch as some years ago it was the Pathans who were the prosperous community. But they had been gradually displaced and reduced to poverty and debt by the Vaishes, who succeeded in getting into their hands a considerable part of the property which formerly belonged to the Pathans. In this way it comes about that a great number of the accused are indebted to the complainants.