A 24-year-old American national has been detained in India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands for entering a prohibited tribal reserve area, police said on Wednesday.
Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov, whose father is from Ukraine, arrived in the capital Port Blair on 27 March and was arrested three days later on Sunday after he was reported to have taken a boat to the restricted part of the island.
Andaman and Nicobar, a former British penal colony, is a group of 572 islands located more than 1,200km (700miles) from mainland India. The Indian government strictly monitors access to some remote parts of the federal territory, which are home to five known indigenous tribes, some of whom are hostile to outsiders.
These tribes, including the Sentinelese, Jarwa, Onge, Shompens, and Great Andamanese, are among the world’s last remaining isolated communities.
Andaman and Nicobar director general of police HS Dhaliwal said police were alerted after locals spotted the man near Khuramadera Beach in South Andaman, relatively close to the Jarwa Reserve Forest, which is a protected area for the Indigenous Jarwa tribe.
He was seen on an inflatable single-seater boat at around 4am on 29 March, he said.
“We are getting more details about him and his intention to visit the reserved tribal area. We are also trying to find out where else he has visited during his stay in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. We are questioning the hotel staff where he was staying in Port Blair,” he told Press Trust of India.
A formal complaint has been registered against him under the Foreigners Act, 1946, and for entering a tribal reserve or restricted area without permission.
A police official told The Indian Express that “it was found he had entered the prohibited tribal reserve area”.
Mr Polyakov was reportedly on his third trip to the islands after visiting twice last year. The police said they have informed about the detention to the Home Ministry which is in touch with the US embassy.
Tribal lands are legally protected under the Andaman & Nicobar Islands (Protection of Aboriginal Tribes) Regulation, 1956, which prohibits unauthorised entry.
In 2018, American missionary John Allen Chau, 27, was killed by the Sentinelese, an endangered tribe, after illegally trying to enter their territory to preach Christianity. He was allegedly killed after tribespeople shot him with arrows as his boat approached the island.
In 2006, two Indian fishermen who accidentally drifted to the North Sentinel Island were killed by the Sentinelese tribe. When an Indian military helicopter later flew low over the island, tribal members fired arrows at it in a show of defiance.
The navy since enforces a three-mile buffer zone around the island, ensuring no outsiders come close.
