http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2527431,00.html
Times Online January 02, 2007 The yard in the village of Malsai, deep in the Indian countryside, where Stephen Bennett was beaten to death (Ashling O'Connor / The Times) Briton killed over 'misunderstanding' in Indian village Ashling O'Connor, Roha A British man murdered in the Indian bush before Christmas may have been the victim of a cross-cultural misunderstanding over a woman that caused a gang of villagers to beat him to death and string his body up on a mango tree. Police in Roha, a small industrial town 75 miles south of Bombay, said that Stephen Bennett, 40, from Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, stumbled across Nirmala Ramesh Mene in the early hours as she was going to the toilet in the courtyard outside her stonewall house in the remote village of Malsai. The woman became frightened about being approached by a strange, foreign man and ran back into her house to wake her husband, Ramesh Maruti Mene, and his brother, Vithobha. Mr Bennett, who police think may have inadvertently wandered from the train station at Roha on route between Goa and Bombay, knocked on their door for directions or a place to sleep but the communication barrier — and their belief he had assaulted the woman — led to a violent confrontation. He was severely beaten with sticks by the two men, who were joined by neighbours Nathuram Ganpath Mohite and Kashinath Sitaram Marathe. Together with two other villagers, Raja Gayanan Mahisare and Ravindra Ganpat Dalvi, who are on the run from police, they carried his body to the outskirts of the village, along a cactus-lined stream and up a steep hill to a mango tree where they hung him by the neck with a cloth rag, according to police. They left his passport, £330 and 570 rupees in his pocket to give the appearance of suicide. His badly beaten body was discovered by a female buffalo herder on December 11. The four men, all local farmers, were arrested on December 14 and remanded to magistrates' custody where they face charges of murder — a crime punishable by death in India. Police claim they have confessed to the murder, which was witnessed by a 60-year-old man. "This is an unusual case," Inspector Vikram Patil, leading the investigation, said. "This was maybe just bad luck and misunderstanding." The Indian authorities' handling of the case has raised serious questions for Mr Bennett's parents in Cheltenham who do not believe their son was traveling by train and fear he may have been abducted. Maureen Bennett last spoke to her son on December 7th after a series of frantic phone calls in which he said he had been intimidated by locals at Baga beach, a popular tourist spot in Goa. "He told me he was traveling from Panjim [the capital of Goa] with two men and they were frightening him," she said. "He said he was scared but thought he might have lost them and would phone me back in half an hour. I never heard from him again." Before his death, Mr Bennett, who, according to the police report was a small-time cannabis dealer, was enjoying a pre-Christmas holiday following the break down of a tempestuous relationship with his partner, Lesley Lewis. The father-of-two flew to Goa to meet friends John Cronin and Corey Hannon to scatter the ashes of another friend killed in a motorcycle accident in the Indian beach resort the previous year. "He just wanted some winter sun. His main interest was snorkeling and perhaps some Christmas shopping. But he ended up running away from Goa out of fear," Mrs Bennett said. "I think he was picked up, probably by taxi drivers. His trouble was that he trusted people. Somebody took him to that village. Why would he be so stupid as to get off a train in the middle of the night in a place he didn't know and walk 7km through the jungle to knock on a door? And he had a bad back. If anything, he would have stayed at the station. This story is too far fetched, even in India. "I don't want four men to go to the gallows for something that isn't true. But I do want the truth." -- DEV BOREM KORUM. Gabe Menezes. London, England
