Because He Was Carrying a Weapon

Bumped into Grant again - the Australian I met in Diu. He told me that he had hired a Jeep to take him and his sister to Varanasi. On the way they knocked over a saddhu, his head smashing into the windscreen. The driver didn't want to stop, so eventually Grant managed to punch and then strangle the co-driver, until the car stopped. They stepped out of the car; Grant managed to secretly remove the car keys and walked along the dark road to the saddhu. The police had arrived, the drivers and the police spoke in Hindi and laughed, and apparently they smashed into the saddhu because he was carrying a weapon, so they took him out. Very imaginative. The police "bought" it, and ordered Grant to step back into the car.

He took photos and wrote down registration numbers etc, and is handing it all over to the Australian Embassy and the Indian Embassy back home.