An American tourist left only last week in an inflatable boat for the remote island of North Sentinel in the Indian Ocean. He had packed a coca -Cola Light and a coconut as an offering for the highly isolated tribe that lives there, and had brought a Gopro camera with the hope of filming the meeting, Indian police said.
Guided by his GPS navigation, the man, Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov, 24, reached the northeastern coast of the island at 10 am on March 29, according to the police. He scanned the earth with binoculars, but he saw no one. Then he went up to the ground, left the Coca -Cola Let and the coconut there, took sand samples and recorded a video, said the police.
Mr. Polyakov was arrested on March 31 when he returned to Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, an archipelago to more than 800 miles east of the continent of India, authorities said.
Few strangers have been on the island of North Sentinel, which is a territory of India and is illegal to visit. The regulations of the Indian government prohibit any external interaction with their isolated tribe, whose members hunt with Bow and Arrow and have killed intruders to step on their shore.
In 2018, an American missionary, John Allen Chau, went to the island with a Bible. The tribe members shot him with arches and arrows when he arrived on the ground, the Indian authorities later said. The fishermen who helped take Mr. Chau to North Sentinel told the police that they had seen the tribe members dragging your body to the beach.
In 2006, El Centinelo They killed two fishermen who had accidentally derived on the shore.
But Mr. Polyakov was not deterred. He had planned his trip “meticulously,” said the police, studying the conditions of the sea, the tides and the accessibility of Khurmadera Beach, located on the island of Andaman.
Even after he withdrew from North Sentinel island, Mr. Polyakov tried to attract the attention of the Centinelo people, blowing a whistle from his boat, police said.
He was accused of trying to “interact with the sentinel tribe,” said Yaman Police in a statement. Mr. Polyakov is arrested for charges that include violating a law that protects aboriginal tribes and plans to appear before the court on April 17. The charges have a possible sentence of up to five years in prison and a fine.
“His actions represented a serious threat to the security and well -being of the Centinelo people, whose contact with strangers is strictly prohibited by law to protect his indigenous way of life,” said the statement.
Police said that during his interrogation of Mr. Polyakov, he revealed that he was attracted to the island for a “passion for adventure and his desire to undertake extreme challenges.” The authorities added that his GoPro footage suggested the entrance to the island, and that he used GPS navigation during his trip.
“He was particularly fascinated by the mystique of the Centinelo people,” police said, adding that the authorities had extracted images of their Gopro camera.
The police statement said that the Ministry of External Affairs and the United States embassy had been informed of the arrest.
A state department spokesman said that the department was “aware of the reports of the arrest of an American citizen in India”, but had no more comments due to privacy problems.
The members of Mr. Polisakov’s family could not be contacted.
Mr. Polyakov has registered his travel feats on his YouTube channelwhich includes videos of what he described as “Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban”, some of which involve posing and shooting weapons.
Police said he had made trips before the remote region. In October, hotel staff stopped their attempt to go to North Sentinel Island using an inflatable kayak, police said. In January, he arrived on the island of Baratang, in the archipelago, and “illegally videographico, the Jarawa, the police said.
Survival International, a group that protects the rights of indigenous tribal peoples around the world, said the attempt to contact Mr. Polyakov with the tribal people of North Sentinel was “imprudent and idiot.”
“The actions of this person not only endanger their own life, but also put the life of the entire sentinel tribe at risk,” said Group’s director Caroline Pearce, in a statement. “It is well known now that unparalleled villages It has no immunity to common external diseases such as flu or measles, which could eliminate them completely. ”
She said it was disturbing that he could reach the island at all.
“The Indian authorities have the legal responsibility to ensure that the centine is safe from the missionaries, the influencers of social networks, the people who fish illegally in their waters and any other person who can try to contact them,” he said.
Kirsten Noyes Contributed research.
