But the local authorities, under pressure from international preservation groups and a largely sympathetic local population, are reluctant to pursue the matter. Relatives of Sundar Raj are calling for justice and government compensation. The incident has divided opinion in the archipelago. 'I thought they roasted and ate their victims,' he said. One of the crew later remarked to police that he was surprised to see bodies. The fishermen's macheted bodies were exposed in their shallow graves when the down-draught from the chopper's rotor blades blew away the sand. Other fishermen, who witnessed the attack from the water, described how the pair, believed to be drunk on palm wine, died after they were attacked by near-naked axe-wielding tribal warriors when their craft beached on the island, a preservation area strictly out of bounds to the outside world.Īn Indian coastguard helicopter, sent out to investigate, was attacked with bows and arrows by the same tribal warriors, leaving the pilot under no illusions as to the safety of landing. The two men were killed by loin-clothed Sentinelese warriors on 27 January, after their boat accidentally drifted on to the shore of North Sentinel Island, a tiny outcrop in the Indian Ocean. The remarkable story behind the murders of Indian fishermen Sunder Raj, 48, and Pandit Tiwari, 52, sounds like a chapter from a Joseph Conrad novel, but it happened here in the Andamans late last month.
Having survived occupations of the islands by the Burmese, the British and the Japanese and most recently a tsunami which took the lives of almost 2,000 other islanders in the archipelago, the elusive Sentinelese remain one of the most enigmatic peoples on earth - but today the very existence of the tribe may be under threat, and not because of the encroachment of the rest of the world.
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