The conviction under sections 302 and 34 of IPC was affirmed due to overwhelming eyewitness testimony establishing participation in a group assault leading to homicide.

JUDGMENT

T. Amarnath Goud, J. - Heard Mr. D.K. Deb, learned counsel appearing for the appellants and Mr. R. Datta, learned Public Prosecutor appearing for the State of Tripura-respondent.

2. This criminal appeal under Section-374(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure is directed against the judgment and order of conviction and sentence dated 16.11.2019 & 18.11.2019 respectively, passed by the learned Sessions Judge, North Tripura, Dharmanagar, in Case No. S.T.(Type-1) 25 of 2015, whereby and whereunder, the appellants have been convicted to undergo imprisonment for life for committing offence under Section-302 of IPC read with Section-34 of IPC and to pay a fine of Rs. 10,000/- [ten thousand] each.

3. The prosecution story, in brief, is that on 14.09.2014, one Mst. Anowara Begam (PW-5) wife of late Ala Uddin of Baghan, P.S. Bazaricherra, District-Karimganj, Assam lodged an ejahar with the Officer-in-Charge of Churaibari police station to the effect that on 13.09.2014 at about 2100 hours, her son, Amirul Islam went out form home riding on his motor bike to go to Kadamtala, but, while he reached at Baghan village in front of the house of accused Mortuja Ahmed Choudhury, the accused-appellant, Kabir Uddin, Khayrul Hussain, Jabir Hussain, Jashim Udin and Jamal Uddin wrongfully restrained him by blocking the road with tree of betel nut and they assaulted him with a piece of wood for which he received grievous bleeding injuries. It is also stated that the accused-persons also assaulted Anowar Hussain who was also accompanied with Amirul Islam and both of them were shifted to Dhamanagar Hospital and thereafter, both of them were taken to Silchar Medical College & Hospital. Considering the critical condition of the son of the complainant, he was referred TO Guwahati but, on the way at Jorabat, Meghalaya, her son succumbed to the injuries.

4. On receipt of the same, police registered a criminal case against the appellants and others, vide Churaibari P.S. Case No. 2014 CRB 033 for commission of offences punishable under Sections-341/323/302/34 of IPC and started investigation. On completion of the investigation, police submitted the charge-sheet against (i) Martuja Uddin Choudhury (ii) Md. Jamal Uddin (iii) Md. Kabir Uddin Choudhury (iv) Anwar Hussain Choudhury (v) Khayrul Hussain @ Choudhury (vi) Jabir Hussain and (vii) Jasim Uddin @ Atai Choudhury for the commission of offences punishable under Sections-341/323/302/34 of IPC.

5. On receipt of the charge-sheet, learned Magistrate took cognizance and committed the case for trial before the learned Sessions Judge, North Tripura, Dharmanagar and the case was registered and marked as S.T. (T-1) 25 of 2015. It is further stated that charge was framed against all the accused persons named above under Sections-341/323/302 of IPC read with Section-34 of IPC to which the accused-persons pleaded not guilty and claimed to be tried.

6. To prove the case, prosecution has examined as many as 12 witnesses and exhibited some documents [Exbts. 1 to 17 and Exbt. A] as well as some material objects. After closure of the prosecution evidence, the accused-appellants were examined under Section-313 of Cr.P.C. with reference to the incriminating circumstances which were elicited from the evidence on record and the incriminating evidence were read over and explained to he accused-persons in Bengali in open Court to which they denied the truth of the prosecution evidence claiming themselves to be innocent and denied to adduce any witness on their behalf.