Indian police consult anthropologists on prospect of recovering dead American
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An American self-styled adventurer and Christian missionary, John Allen Chau, has been killed and buried by a tribe of hunter-gatherers on a remote island in the Indian Ocean where he had gone to proselytize, according to local law enforcement officials, in this undated image obtained from a social media on November 23, 2018. @JOHNACHAU/via REUTERS |
John Allen Chau, 26, is believed to have been killed last week after traveling to North Sentinel - part of the Indian archipelago of Andaman and Nicobar in the Bay of Bengal - to try to convert the tribe to Christianity.
The Sentinelese, generally considered the last pre-Neolithic tribe in the world, have violently resisted any contact with outsiders. The Indian government has for years placed the island off-limits to visitors to protect the tribe.
“We are in constant touch with anthropologists and psychologists,” said Dependra Pathak, director general of police in the Andaman and Nicobar islands.
“If they suggest any methodology to interact without disturbing them then we can draw (up a) strategy,” he said. “At this stage we don’t have any plan to confront our Sentinelese.”
Chau, who described himself in social media posts as an adventurer and explorer, made several trips to the island by canoe on Nov. 15.
He told fishermen who took him to the island a day later he would not be returning, Pathak said previously.
Seven people who helped Chau reach the island have been arrested.