“This is not a pointless thing - the eternal lives of this tribe is at hand.Can you imagine that there are people who have no idea about what’s happening in the rest of the world? What’s “Don’t retrieve my body,” he wrote, underlining it. Chau was clear about what he wanted done in case he died. “If maybe, from a distance, we can see John’s body, then at least his death gets fully established,” he said. Pathak doesn’t think their bodies were ever recovered and he seemed to indicate that was a possibility in this case as well. Chau’s body, although he suggested that it might never be recovered. Pathak said that about a week after the islanders buried the fishermen in shallow graves on the beach, they dug up the bodies and stood them up by tying them to lengths of bamboo. Police officials are now poring through the records of those killings, looking for clues about what happened to the fishermen’s bodies. In 2006, two crab fishermen were killed by islanders after washing up on North Sentinel’s shores. But will any of the islanders actually face prosecution? And if arrested, would they die in captivity from disease, their immune systems no match for modern microbes? On Friday, authorities sent police officers, along with some of the arrested fishermen, on a boat to observe North Sentinel and establish where Mr. The investigation is now heading into uncharted territory. Another case has been filed against “unknown persons,” the islanders, for killing Mr. Chau reach the island have been arrested and charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder and with violating rules protecting aboriginal tribes. The fishermen and one other man who the police say helped Mr. 17, the fishermen saw a group of islanders dragging his body on the beach, then burying it in a shallow grave in the sand. Chau gave to the fishermen, in which he detailed those failures to win over the islanders, he pleaded with God for clarity: “I don’t want to die. Sometimes the islanders simply stared at him. For two days, he used a kayak to paddle the half-mile between the boat and North Sentinel, where he rattled off passages from Genesis to the islanders. It is unclear what exactly happened to him. Chau told friends he was willing to risk his life to bring Christianity to North Sentinel, a place so shrouded in mystery that the Indian government says no outsiders know the language or the customs of the people there. A graduate of Oral Roberts University and a passionate Christian, Mr. Chau, who lived in Washington state, set off under the cover of darkness with a group of fishermen he paid to take him to the island. Chau showed, that ring of security could easily be breached. The Indian Navy patrols the waters around the island, trying to make sure no outsiders ever reach it. North Sentinel lies less than 35 miles away. The biggest town, Port Blair, has new resorts, new roads, new clothing shops, a major naval base, good cellular phone service and an increasingly busy airport. The Indian government recently pushed to open more islands to tourism. Though the Andaman and Nicobar Island chain is India’s farthest flung outpost, it is no longer so out of reach. “You can’t bring the army and take away the body. Pandit, an anthropologist who visited the island years ago. “You can’t take the Sentinelese for granted,” said T.N. That is the bind police officers are facing. It also says that murderers should be punished. Indian law says North Sentinel’s culture is so precious and unique that its people should be left totally alone and no outsiders are allowed there. The search symbolizes the larger quandary India confronts in trying to enforce a society’s rules in a place that has been intentionally set away from the rest of that society. Chau’s body - the first step in most murder investigations - are proving difficult and some anthropologists say it will be impossible. Chau’s death has shattered the glass.Įfforts to retrieve Mr. For decades, India has kept North Sentinel in a museum case. North Sentinel Island is home to one of the last undiluted hunter-and-gatherer societies, a rugged, Manhattan-sized island where a few dozen people live trapped in time and in total isolation. “We are trying to enter into another civilization’s world.” “This case is the strangest and toughest in my life,” Mr. Chau’s body or determining where it is, the police officers, after sketching out the crime scene, motored away. “Had we approached,” he said, “they would have attacked.”
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