NEW DELHI: Indian police said on Thursday they had arrested a US tourist who sneaked onto a highly restricted island carrying a coconut and a can of Diet Coke to a tribe untouched by the modern world.

Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov, 24, set foot on the restricted territory of North Sentinel — part of India’s Andaman Islands — in a bid to meet the Sentinelese people, who are believed to number only around 150.

All outsiders, Indians and foreigners alike, are banned from travelling within five kilometres of the island to protect the Indigenous people from outside diseases and to preserve their way of life.

“The American citizen was presented before the local court after his arrest and is now on a three-day remand for further interrogation,” the police chief of Andaman and Nicobar Islands said.

Satellite photographs show a coral reef-fringed island — stretching to some 10 kilometres at its widest point — with thick forest and white sand beaches.

The Sentinelese last made international headlines in 2018 after they killed John Allen Chau, 27, an American missionary who landed illegally on their beach.

Published in Dawn, April 4th, 2025