British tourist 'killed after harassing woman'

One of the Indian men who allegedly beat a British tourist to death said the mob killed the foreigner because he had chased a woman through a village, an Indian newspaper reported today.

The confession, reported in The Indian Express, matches the account of Stephen Bennett’s killing previously offered by Indian police but disputed by the Cheltenham man’s family.

Ramesh Mene – one of the four men arrested in connection with the killing - reportedly told the Express that at about 5.30am local time, his wife came running into their home, saying she was being chased by a foreigner, who soon after knocked on the door.

“I opened it and he tried to say something in English. I did not understand. I hit him with firewood. He started running towards to the hills. Hearing the noise, some of our neighbours joined us and we started chasing him,” Mene was quoted as saying by the Express.

“We hit him with whatever we could find before” strangling him with a sari and then hanging his body from a tree, Mene reportedly said. “He was crying and shouting.”

Bennett, 40, from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, was found beaten to death and hanging from a tree on December 11 in a forest near Malsi, a village 85 miles south of Mumbai.

A police investigator, VV Patil, said officers were still trying to find two other men who may have taken part in Bennett’s murder. None of the four already arrested have been charged, he added.

It was the second time in the past two months that a British national has been found dead in India. In November, the body of a British aid worker was discovered near a cemetery in the town of McLeodganj in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh.