Police consult anthropologists in bid to recover American’s body

new delhi — Indian police are working with anthropologists and psychologists to see if a plan can be forged to recover the body of an American missionary suspected to have been killed by an isolated tribe on a remote island, an officer said on Monday.

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.

There has been no significant contact with the Sentinelese for generations. Anthropologists used to occasionally drop off gifts of coconuts and bananas, but even those visits were stopped years ago.

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.”

Anthropologist P.C. Joshi said he understands why authorities want to recover the body. “If there is a death, then the cause of death should be known. It’s important,” said Joshi, a professor at Delhi University.

“Of course, we can’t prosecute” the islanders if they killed Chau, he said. Plus, he noted, it may already be too late to learn much from the body, since the heat and humidity on North Sentinel will cause rapid decomposition. “Ultimately, it’s becoming futile,” he said.

Chau, who described himself in social media posts as an adventurer and explorer, made several trips to the island by canoe on November 15. He told fishermen who took him to the island a day later he would not be returning, Pathak said previously. —