In Brief
On 23 March 1998, a fatal clash occurred in Gorakhpur when groups of men, armed with firearms and weapons, attacked others. One man, Vivek Kumar Pandey, was shot dead. Two other injured witnesses, Asgar and Ramesh Yadav, testified about the attack. The trial court acquitted all accused, but the High Court reversed this, convicting Santosh and Bhola of murder (Section 302) and causing hurt (Section 324) read with Section 34 IPC, sentencing them to life imprisonment and three years respectively. The Supreme Court upheld the conviction, finding the injured witnesses' testimony credible and sufficiently corroborated by medical evidence documenting their injuries immediately after the incident.
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