Luke Harding in Port Blair, on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands

A desperate group of starving survivors in one of the tsunami-hit Nicobar islands kidnapped the island's top civilian official and its police chief in protest at the inadequate relief operation, it emerged yesterday.

The survivors from Great Nicobar Island spent four days without food before trekking through the jungle to the wrecked headquarters settlement at Campbell Bay.

When they arrived they discovered the island's assistant commissioner and deputy assistant of police eating a plate of biryani, witnesses said.

The crowd of Punjabi settlers took the men hostage, demanding that they provide help to the hundreds of islanders who were starving in the jungle.

Starving islanders kidnap officials, continued