THE Indian Action Committee (IAC) in collaboration with the Regional Democratic Council of Administrative Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam) organised and successfully held a programme of activities on Friday at the Hampton Court Primary School, to commemorate the 145th Anniversary of the Devonshire Castle uprising in which five Indentured labourers were shot and killed by colonial police.

The IAC in a release said, it recognises that this was the very first instance of sugar workers being killed by the authorities and those five are collectively known as the

Devonshire Castle Martyrs. The IAC invited Mr. Tota. C. Mangar, historian and former Deputy Vice- Chancellor of the University of Guyana, who gave a detailed account of the events that led up to the martyrdom of Maxidally, Kaulika, Beccaroo, Baldeo and Auckloo.
The IAC having presented its recent findings of a research conducted on the Devonshire Castle uprising, will be submitting these findings to the National Trust of Guyana, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Social Cohesion and the Department of Culture, Youth and Sport; and the National Archives of Guyana in Georgetown.

Additionally, the IAC said it was pleased to have at the event prominent Essequibians such as former Regional Chairman, Isahack Basir CCH; Mr. Karan Chand Ghasi, a representative for the Prime Minister; Regional Vice Chairman, Mrs. Juliet Coonjah; Deputy Regional Executive Officer, Roop Kumar Persaud; and Mayor and Town Council representative, Ms. Shakeela Briglall.

The IAC-organised event was successfully concluded with an impressive march led by Grade Five and Six students, teachers and the Head Master of the Hampton Court Primary School, to the martyrs’ monument site at Cabbage Dam, Devonshire Castle, the release added.