By Tim Binnall
An American man hoping to teach the Word of God to a tribe of people living on an Indian island cut off from the outside world wound up paying a gruesome price for his ill-advised missionary work. John Allen Chau reportedly journeyed to India earlier this month posing as a tourist, but outraged officials in the country say that this was no mere sightseeing trip. On the contrary, the young man's plan was to travel to North Sentinel Island, which is home to an isolated tribe of around two dozen people, whom he wished to convert to Christianity.
It appears that his initial mission was successful as, thanks to some help from a handful of local fishermen, he was able to reach North Sentinel Island by canoe late last week. When he arrived, however, it seems that the Sentinelese people were not too keen on breaking bread with the young man nor learning about his religion. Instead, they swiftly shot Chau with a barrage of arrows, smashed his boat, and ultimately killed him.
The island and its people are protected by the Indian government, who fear that the tribe could fall ill if they were exposed to 'foreign' germs and, as we have learned in this particular case, because the group is extremely hostile to outsiders. As such, while the Sentinelese will bear no responsibility for their role in Chau's demise, the fishermen who helped him reach the island are being charged with his death, since they had a hand in helping him with the deadly and highly illegal misadventure.
Meanwhile, Indian officials are left with a somewhat more pressing problem on their hands in that they are now trying to figure out how to recover Chau's body from what one would assume is an already 'trigger happy' tribe living on the island. Whether they will be able to pull off the tricky retrieval remains to be seen, but perhaps the most just method would be to send the fishermen who delivered the young man to his doom in the first place.