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PORT BLAIR (Reuters) – A young American adventurer and evangelist visiting one of the islands of the isolated Indian group of Andaman and Nicobar was killed by a tribe of hunter-gatherers living there isolated from the outside world the police said on Wednesday.
PHOTO FILE: A man from the Sentinel tribe is aiming, with his bow and arrows, for an Indian coast guard helicopter flying over the island to investigate the tsunami damage in the Indian archipelago. Andaman and Nicobar, December 28, 2004. REUTERS / Indian Coast Guard / Document
The North Sentinel Island, closed to visitors, is home to the Sentinel community, considered the last pre-neolithic tribe in the world.
The American, identified as 26-year-old John Allen Chau, was killed after being illegally transported to the island by fishermen, Reuters Dependra Pathak, chief executive of the police in Andaman, told Reuters and Nicobar.
"There has been a murder case against strangers," said Pathak, adding that the fishermen had been arrested.
The publications on Chau's social networks identify him as an adventurer and explorer. Responding to a travel blog question about what was at the top of his list of adventures, Chau said, "Return to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India."
Chau also said in the blog: "I definitely get my inspiration from the life of Jesus."
According to his publications on social networks, Chau seems to have visited India several times in recent years, exploring many parts of southern India and preaching to certain places as well.
Police said in a statement last Tuesday that she had opened an investigation after being contacted by the US consulate in Chennai, in the south of the country.
"We are aware of reports about an American citizen living in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands," a spokeswoman for the consulate said in an email, but declined to provide further details.
North Sentinel Island is about 50 km west of Port Blair, the capital of the island group.
In 2006, two fishermen, whose boat was lost on the island of 60 km2, were killed and their bodies were never found. An Indian Coast Guard helicopter to recover the bodies was repulsed by a volley of arrows from the community.
"Why are they so angry?"
Pathak said that a Coast Guard ship with police and tribe experts had gone exploring the island and developing a plan to recover Chau's body.
Chau made two or three trips to the island in canoe from November 15, making contact with the tribe but returning to his boat. On November 16, he told the fishermen that he would not come back from the island and ordered them to go home and hand him some handwritten notes that he had made to a friend, said Pathak.
The next morning, they saw his body dragged onto a beach and buried in the sand, said the police chief, adding, "It was a misplaced adventure in a highly protected area."
A source with access to Chau's notes said that Chau had taken scissors, safety pins and a football as a gift to the tribe.
In his notes, the source said that Chau wrote that some members of the tribe were good to him, while others were very aggressive.
"I've been so nice to them, why are they so angry and so aggressive?" Said the source quoted by Chau.
Reuters was unable to immediately find the contact details of Chau's family or his representative.
The source, who asked not to be named, stated that Chau had written that he "was doing this to establish the kingdom of Jesus on the island … Do not blame the natives if I am killed . "
Report by Sanjib Kumar Roy; Written by Euan Rocha; Edited by Clarence Fernandez and Gareth Jones
