Five days after the Bombay High Court granted them bail, and with help from 200-odd villagers of Malsai who contributed to raise the Rs 1 lakh bail amount, four persons accused of killing British national Stephen Bennett in December last year walked out of the Alibaug district jail on Friday evening.

Having been behind bars for the last nine months, the four accused were speechless when asked about their reactions on attaining freedom. A group of 50 villagers consisting of family members of the accused and village elders were there to receive them.

“We were tortured and beaten up to confess to the killing. We kept saying we do not know anything about the Englishman, but no one listened to us. We never thought we would get out of the jail ever as we are poor,” says Nathuram Ganpat Mohite, the most vocal of the four accused. “I was at work when the police came and picked me up nine months ago. They never told me why they are arresting me or did not allow me to meet my family. It was only after a few days in custody that I learnt that I have been arrested for the murder of the Englishman whose body was found on the outskirts of our village. I had never seen that man. Not even his body. I do not even know if he had come to our village,” Mohite claims, who was one of the first to be arrested three days after Bennett’s body was found hanging from a tree.

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