Death of US Tourist: Indian Tribal Panel Asks Sentinel Island be made Inviolable

New Delhi (Sputnik): India's National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST), under the chairmanship of Dr Nand Kumar Sai, on Wednesday, reviewed the reports submitted by the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Andaman and Nicobar islands' administration on the killing of an American national by the aboriginal Sentinelese Tribe on an island where there are restrictions on the entry of outsiders. The chairperson of the commission reiterated that all necessary steps must be taken by the government to maintain 'Inviolability of the North Sentinel Island'.

'The Chairperson, NCST expressed that following the unfortunate incident, the vulnerability of Sentinelese tribes in North Sentinel Island has increased many folds, and any aggressive steps to recover the body will adversely disturb the peace and tranquillity in the island,' the Indian government's statement reads.

American national John Allen Chau arrived in the area on October 16, staying on another island while preparing for his trip to North Sentinel Island. Reports suggested that he paid a handful of fishermen roughly $325 to take him to the restricted island. Chau was killed on November 17, based on the account of the fishermen who had taken him to the island, hiding from the glare of the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard. The fishermen said they saw a body being buried on the shore on November 17, which, from the clothing and circumstances, appeared to be that of Chau. 

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Meanwhile, the Indian government has made it clear that no aggressive measures will be undertaken on the island to retrieve the body of Chau. 

It has constituted a 5-member committee under the chairmanship of secretary (Tribal Welfare) of the Andaman and Nicobar Administration to review the institutional mechanism to prevent the landing of foreign nationals on the North Sentinel Island and to suggest measures to prevent such incidents in future. The committee will submit its report within 30 days.

The Sentinelese, whom scholars believe are descendants of Africans who migrated to the area about 50,000 years ago, survive on the small, forested island by hunting, fishing and gathering wild plants. Almost nothing is known of their lives, except that they attack outsiders with spears or bows and arrows.

In 2006, the Sentinelese tribe killed two fishermen and propped up their bodies on bamboo stakes. The entire North Sentinel Island, which measures 59.67 sq. km including the coastal area extending up to 5k m from the high water mark, has been declared a Tribal Reserve.