Bhumij and Nripen Das were present, but she, on being confronted with her ejahar, admitted that she did not name anyone to be present at the spot at the time of the incident thereby making her statement suspect. He further contends that the statement of PW-2 that the appellants jointly and severally assaulted the deceased is contradictory to the statement of PW-1, who had stated that A-1 had assaulted the deceased first and followed by A-2, A-3 and A-4; such inconsistent statements raised reasonable ground for doubt in the case of the prosecution. According to the learned counsel, the statements of PW-4, PW-5 and PW-7 are based on hearsay evidence, which ought to have been discarded by the trial court. He finally submits that the trial court did not consider the statements of the defence witnesses in their true perspective and has in the process wrongly convicted the appellants, which cannot be upheld by this Court. On the other hand, Mr. S. Sarkar, the learned Public Prosecutor, supports the impugned conviction and sentence and submits that the evidence adduced by the prosecution, which could not be demolished by the defence in any manner in their crossexamination, have established without any shadow of doubt that the appellants are guilty of the offences charged against them. He, therefore, contends that there is no merit in this appeal, which is liable to be dismissed.
