Sheekha Bureau
Port Blair, Nov 23: After several days of failed attempts to get fresh lead about the body of American Tourist, who was reportedly killed by Sentenelese Tribes of North Sentinel Island in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the local police has obtained seven days Police custody remand of three alleged accused.
The American tourist John Allen Chau, was reportedly seen killed on 17/11/18 in North Sentinel Islands by a group of five fishermen.
“Police will put them on interrogation to investigate on various aspects of the case including the sequence of events, the sea route followed for North Sentinel Island. The location where the victim landed and the place of incidence, location where john Allen Chau was last seen shall also be provoked,” Mr. Vijay Singh, Senior Superintendent of Police, South Andaman informed media today.
Further according to police, the personal journal of Chau, which we wrote between 14 to 16 November before his alleged death, will be analysed afresh accordingly.
“It will also be ascertained whether the victim had taken the help of these fishermen or others to venture to the North Sentinel Island on earlier occasion. To make the picture better clearer, one another police team is being sent to the North Sentinel Island waters,” he said.
As the case pertains to the ultra-sensitive tribal group-Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group(PVTG), police is also taking help of Anthropologists, Academics, Forest department experts etc to guide & assist the police during the investigation of this case, SP Singh added.
Meanwhile according to highly placed sources today’s police team which went to North Sentinel Island waters for recce came back late afternoon and could not locate the body of the victim but have identified the place, where the body was alleged buried by tribes.
The American tourist John Allen Chau and his local friend, Alexander had taken help of another local resident to make a deal with five fishermen to drop John Allen Chau to North Sentinel Island for which they have paid Rs. 25,000.
John’s journal left behind, shows that he had gone to the Island for preaching and to introduce Jesus to Sentinelese Tribes.
Altogether seven people including two friends and five fishermen have already been arrested in a separate case registered vide FIR No. 92/18 dated 20.11.2018 u/s 282/336/304/34 IPC R.W.S 7/8 PAT, 1956 at PS Humfrygunj for violating the provisions of PAT Regulation and causing death of John Allen Chau.
Access to North Sentinel Island and its buffer zone is strictly restricted under Protection of Aboriginal Tribe (Regulation), 1956 and Regulations under Indian Forest Act, 1927.
“Despite knowing fully well about the illegality of the action and the hostile attitude of the Sentinelese tribesmen to the outsiders, all accused people collaborated with John Chau for this visit to North Sentinel Island without any permission from the authorities,” the Director General of Police, Dependra Pathak said earlier in a press release.
The native population of the Andamans has been greatly reduced and largely extinct through the course of introducing these people to the modern world. This self proclaimed missionary’s excursion, if “successful” would have lead to the peril of the North Sentinelse. That is well known, with hundreds of years of precedence in the Andamans and around the world. Also this missionary must have known this, but human life obviously did not matter much to him (including his own). Therefore, what he set out to do was premeditated murder of the Sentinelese.