Indians seek way to take man’s body from hostile island

NEW DELHI — Police said Saturday that they have mapped the area of a remote Indian island where tribesmen were seen burying the body of an American adventurer and Christian missionary who was killed with arrows this month.

During their visit to the island’s surroundings on Friday, investigators also spotted four or five North Sentinel islanders moving in the area from a distance of about 1,600 feet from a boat and studied their behavior for several hours, said Dependra Pathak, the director-general of police of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where North Sentinel is.

Indian authorities have been struggling to figure out how to recover the body 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.

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.

The officials took two of the seven people arrested for helping Chau get close to the island in an effort to determine his route and the circumstances of his death. The fishermen who had taken Chau to the shore saw the tribesmen dragging and burying his body on the morning of Nov. 17.

Pathak said investigators have asked experts to give them “the nuances of the group’s conduct and behavior, particularly in this kind of violent behavior,” before they attempt to recover the body.

Officials typically don’t 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.

Indian ships monitor the waters around the island, trying to ensure that outsiders do not go near the Sentinelese, who have repeatedly made clear they want to be left alone.

Chau went to “share the love of Jesus,” said Mary Ho, international executive leader of All Nations. All Nations, a Kansas City, Mo., organization, helped train Chau, discussed the risks with him and sent him on the mission, to support him in his “life’s calling,” she added.

“He wanted to have a longterm relationship, and if possible, to be accepted by them and live amongst them,” she said.

When a young boy tried to hit him with an arrow on his first day on the island, Chau swam back to the fishing boat he had arranged to wait for him offshore. The arrow, he wrote, hit a Bible he was carrying.

“Why did a little kid have to shoot me today?” he wrote in his notes, which he left with the fishermen before swimming back the next morning. “His high-pitched voice still lingers in my head.”

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. His notes, which were reported Thursday in Indian newspapers and confirmed by police, make clear he knew he might be killed.

All Nations contacted the U.S. State Department, Ho said. She doesn’t know yet whether it will be possible to recover Chau’s body.

Five fishermen, a friend of Chau’s and a tourist guide were arrested for helping Chau.