In April 1858, Aga, a convict gangsman at the Ross Island penal settlement in the Andaman Islands shared an escape plan with his fellow prisoners incarcerated on the isolated island by the British after the 1857 rebellion.
The gangsman, with his limited geographical knowledge, reasoned that once they reached the shore opposite Ross Island, it would at most be a ten-day march to Rangoon, the capital of Burma, where the convicts could seek refuge.
The plan seemed infallible and the prisoners quickly accepted it.
On April 23, 90 convicts boarded rafts made from felled trees bound with tent ropes and escaped Ross Island. After a two-day journey, 40 convicts from the stations at Chatham Island and Phoenix Bay also joined them. A contingent of 130 convicts marched into the unfamiliar jungles under Aga’s command.
Everything seemed in order until Aga’s limited geographical knowledge was soon exposed. The convicts walked through thick jungles for 13 days with no sense of direction. Sometimes, Aga led them back to the same place they had passed days before.
Soon, they ran out of food and water. Those who could climbed the tall and branchless trees to get some fruit resembling the Indian plum. Water, equally scarce, was only found in the form of small springs oozing from the hills. Twelve convicts succumbed to starvation and were left behind to perish.
Among these convicts was Dudhnath Tewari. A sepoy of the 14th Regiment of the Native Infantry, he had been convicted of mutiny and desertion. The Commission at Jhelum sentenced him to transportation for life and labour in irons. On April 6, 1858, Tewari was received at the British Penal Settlement at Port Blair when he arrived from Karachi. He was labelled Convict No. 276. The escape was planned less than 20 days after Tewari’s arrival on Ross Island.
কৃতজ্ঞতা স্বীকার- ভারতের শেষ ভূখণ্ড ( সঞ্জীব চট্টোপাধ্যায়)
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