(1) THE appellants are five in number and they have filed this appeal as of right. They were acquitted by the trial court but convicted by the High Court on appeal filed by the State, under Section 302, Section 325 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code besides the offence of rioting under Section 148 of the Indian Penal Code. On the first count they were each sentenced to imprisonment for life besides fine and to lesser sentences for the lesser offence.

(2) THE gist of the case against them is that all the five accused formed themselves into an unlawful assembly on the evening of 24-10-1985 and lay in ambush waiting for Bahadur Singh (deceased) to come through the road and on seeing Bahadur Singh they all launched an attack with weapons like gandasa, takua and ghope. The wife of Bahadur Singh (Ranjit Kaur, PW 10) who accompanied her husband made a bid to rescue her husband from the onslaughts of the assailants, but she too was attacked by them. Bahadur Singh died at the spot. PW 10 (Ranjit Kaur) furnished first information to the police on the same evening on the basis of which FIR was registered by the police. Subsequently all the five accused were arrested