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Police stake out area where American killed by Andaman tribespeople Police stake out area where American killed by Andaman tribespeople
(about 9 hours later)
Police on the Andaman islands have staked out a remote area where tribespeople were seen burying the body of an American adventurer and Christian missionary after allegedly killing him with arrows. Indian police trying to recover the remains of an American missionary killed by an isolated tribe are consulting anthropologists and staking out the island where he was attacked.
Indian authorities are trying to recover the remains of 26-year-old John Allen Chau, who was killed by North Sentinel islanders who apparently shot him with arrows and then buried his body on the beach earlier this month. Officers in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a remote Indian territory, are trying to determine whether the body of John Allen Chau can be retrieved, and whether any tribespeople can be charged for killing him after he trespassed on North Sentinel Island on 16 November.
But police on the islands in the Bay of Bengal said on Saturday that they have to consult with experts to learn “the nuances of the group’s conduct and behaviour, particularly in this kind of violent behaviour”. Police believe Chau, 26, a self-styled adventurer from Washington state, was killed nine days ago on the forested island about two-thirds the size of Manhattan in the Bay of Bengal.
During an investigation of the island’s surroundings on Friday, officials sailed close to the beach and spotted four or five North Sentinel islanders moving in the area. They studied their behavior for several hours, said Dependra Pathak, the director-general of police of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where North Sentinel Island is located. His death at the hands of the one of the world’s most mysterious communities has thrown up two new questions: Can Chau’s remains be recovered? And can anyone be prosecuted for killing him?
“We have more or less identified the site and the area in general,” he said.Friday’s visit was the second boat expedition of the week by a team of police and officials from the forest department, tribal welfare department and coast guard, Pathak said. “It is certainly the most unique case in my career,” said Dependra Pathak, who left his post overseeing traffic policing in the Indian capital Delhi five months ago to become the director general of law enforcement in the Andamans.
The fishermen who had taken Chau to the shore saw the tribespeople dragging and burying his body on the morning of 17 November. Police have attempted one aerial survey and two by boat since Chau’s death was first reported to officers on Tuesday. A helicopter flew over the island on Wednesday but kept its distance: the Sentinelese, an isolated tribe at least 30,000 years old, have shot arrows at helicopters that have approached too closely in the past.
Officials typically do not travel to the North Sentinel area, where people live as their ancestors did thousands of years ago. The only contacts, occasional “gift giving” visits in which bananas and coconuts were passed by small teams of officials and scholars who remained in the surf, were years ago. On Friday, police sailed to within about 300 metres of the island, bringing one of the fishermen alleged to have assisted Chau to reach the shore, and who says he saw his body being buried there on 17 November.
Indian ships monitor the waters around the island, trying to ensure outsiders do not go near the Sentinelese, who have repeatedly made clear they want to be left alone. “We located the place of this incidence and got a sketch map – this is a mandatory requirement in a criminal investigation,” Pathak said. “For about three hours we watched, and in this time we saw five or six Sentinelese moving about on the beach.
Chau, who was described by friends as a fervent Christian, went to “share the love of Jesus,” said Mary Ho, international executive leader of All Nations. The Missouri-based organisation helped train Chau, discussed the risks with him and sent him on the mission, to support him in his “life’s calling,” she added. “They were carrying a bow and arrow and looking towards sea side. I would say they were very watchful.”
“He wanted to have a long-term relationship, and if possible, to be accepted by them and live amongst them,” she said. Police are interviewing anthropologists who have studied or interacted with the tribe, loosely estimated to number 100 people, for clues on how they respond in the aftermath of death.
Police say Chau knew that the Sentinelese resisted all contact by outsiders, firing arrows and spears at passing helicopters and killing fishermen who drift onto their shore. Notes that Chau left behind made clear he knew he might be killed, police said. “Because they have killed somebody from outside, they have to have suffered a psychological shock,” he said. “Understanding this will help us in observing them and to draw a strategy if we want to move forward.”
“I DON’T WANT TO DIE,” wrote Chau, who appeared to want to bring Christianity to the islanders. “Would it be wiser to leave and let someone else to continue. No I don’t think so.” When a boat ran aground on North Sentinel Island in 2006, the two fishermen onboard were killed and buried in the sand. After about a week, according to police records, the tribespeople dug up the pair and hung them from bamboo poles facing the ocean.
Chau paid fishermen to take him near North Sentinel, using a kayak to paddle to shore and bringing gifts, including a football and fish. Should the Sentinelese do the same with Chau, it could present the only opportunity to identify or retrieve his body.
The Indian government lifted restrictions on traveling to the island in August, Ho said. She said she couldn’t comment on why Chau arrived there the way he did, but that he carefully planned the trip. “As per our information in that [2006] case, after five to seven days they had taken the body out of the sand and made it stand with the help of bamboo, facing the sea,” said Pathak.
All Nations contacted the US state department, Ho said. She did not know whether it would be possible to recover Chau’s body. A criminal case has been registered against “unknown tribesmen”, in line with mandatory police procedures, but Pathak said it was unclear if police could even lawfully land on the island to arrest someone. “As per law, no one can go there, not even police,” he said.
“We are just in grief and in shock about his death,” she said. “At the same time, we consider it a real honour to have worked with him, to have been a part of his journey.” “There is a responsibility and obligation on us to handle the case with great sensitivity because there is a small group, in a small place, and they have their own civilisation and world view. We have no plans to barge in and have a confrontation,” he said.
Scholars know almost nothing about the island, including how many people live there or what language they speak. The Andamans once had other similar groups, believed to have been migrants from Africa and south-east Asia who settled in the island chain centuries ago. But their numbers have dwindled dramatically over the past century as a result of disease, intermarriage and migration. Kanchan Mukhopadhyay, a researcher with the Anthropological Survey of India who was previously stationed in the Andamans, said trying to retrieve Chau’s body threw up too many problems to be realistic.
Five fishermen, a friend of Chau’s and a local tourist guide have been arrested for helping Chau. “It’s a restricted area and the government has decided a hands-off policy,” he said. “One has to go there, land there – and if they resist, what are we going to do?”
He said Chau, who wrote that he wanted to “declare Jesus” to the Sentinelese, had knowingly violated the will of the tribe. “And this retrieval of the body will again violate the will of the people.”
Seven people including five fishermen have been arrested for helping Chau reach close to the island – which he had labelled “Satan’s last stronghold” in his diary – on the evening of 14 September. According to his journal entries, he managed to set foot on the shore the following day, but was chased back on to the boat by the Sentinelese.
He wrote that night: “I don’t want to die. Would it be wiser to leave and let someone else continue? No. I don’t think so. I still could make it back to the US somehow, as it almost seems like certain death to stay here.”
The next afternoon, he kayaked back to the island. Two fishermen saw the Sentinelese dragging his body and burying it the next morning.
The Sentinelese are regarded as one of the world’s most isolated communities, resisting both British colonisers and efforts by Indian administrators to integrate them into the surrounding islands. Since 1996 the Indian government has had a policy of leaving the tribe alone, enforcing a buffer zone around their island.
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