S.H.Shaukat Abidi, J.

1. All the appeals arise out of the same judgment and order and so with consent of the learned counsel for parties they have been heard together and are being disposed of by this common judgment.

2. Appellant Awadheshwar Singh has been convicted under Sec.302/140 of the Indian Penal Code (in shore the Code) and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life. He has filed the Criminal Appeal No. 387/84. But at the time of hearing this appeal learned counsel for the appellant said that the appellant Awadheshwar Singh has died and this fact has not been controverted and as such this appeal (Cr. Appl. 387/84) has abated as against him.

3. Appellants Rangnath Singh, Bindeshwari Singh, Parsuram Singh, Triloki Singh, Satish Singh, Gandhi Singh, Jitendra Singh, Jwala Singh, Gyandutt Singh of Criminal Appeal No. 413/84 and Anil Singh, Raghubansh Singh of Criminal Appeal No. 436/84 have been convicted under Sec.302/140 of the Code and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life. Appellants Surendra Singh and Devendra Singh of Criminal Appeal No. 594/84 have been convicted under Section 302 of the Code and they have been sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life. These two appellants have further been convicted under Sec.148 of the Code and 27 of the Arms Act and have been sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for two years and six months each respectively under the said counts. Further appellants Anil Singh, Bindeshwari Singh, Parsurara Singh, Surendra Singh, Awadheshwar Singh and Bengali Singh have been convicted under Sec.148 of the Code and have been awarded rigorous imprisonment for two years each. Appellants Rangnath Singh, Triloki Singh, Satish Singh, Gandhi Singh, Jitendra Singh, Jwala Singh and Gyandutt Singh have further been convicted under Sec.147 of the Code and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for one year each. All the sentences of the appellants have been ordered to run concurrently.

4. The case of the prosecution as appears from the Fardbeyan (Ext. 1) of Banwari Yadav (P. W. 7) recorded on 17-1-78 by Baidyanath Prasad Srivastava, S. I. of Karpi police station, is that there is a government boring to the north of his village which is used for the purpose of irrigating the fields of the villagers. There is a Karha for irrigation purpose which was constructed about 10 to 12 years ago and this Karha passes through the fields of Rangnath Singh, Triloki Singh, Raghubansh Singh and Bindeshwari Singh of the village. Subsequently these persons installed their own boring and they started putting obstruction to the flow of water in the Karha which was objected to by the villagers. This caused annoyance to the members of the Bhumihar community of the village and they used to say that they would stop the flow of water to the fields of the persons of lower castes. The operator of the Government boring is Baleshwar Kahar of the same village in the night preceding the alleged date of occurrence at about 11 p.m. when the electric line came, Baleshwar Kahar started the boring machine and water started flowing. When the field of Hitnarain Paswan was being irrigated, Rangnath Singh and his sons Surendra and Devendra went there and abused the operator Baleshwar Kahar and stopped the flew of water. Thereafter in the next morning i.e. in the morning of 17-1-78 Rangnath Singh, Triloki Singh, Surendra Singh, Devendra Singh, Parsuram Singh and Jitendra Singh went to the house of Baleshwar Kahar and assaulted his mother and nephew. Then the persons of the backward community collected and asked Baleshwar Kahar to file a case and sent the nephew of Baleshwar Kahar to the police station along with the village Chaukidar. On this score the members of the Bhumihar community felt annoyed and they abused and threatened the backward persons of the village.

5. It was in the noon of the same day that a mob came from the northern side of the village in which there were two firearms also. They came to