Robert William Escourt Ashe

Robert William d'Escourt Ashe I.C.S. (23 November 1872 – 17 June 1911) (Collector Ashe) was the acting Collector and District magistrate of Tirunelveli district during the British Raj. On June 17, 1911, he was assassinated by Vanchinathan at the Maniyachi railway junction (between Tirunelveli and Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu) and died within half an hour. His assassin Vanchi alias Sankara Aiyar of Shencotta in Travancore State committed suicide a few minutes after; he was accompanied by a youth named Sankara Krishna Aiyar who ran away, but was afterwards caught and convicted. Ashe was the first and only colonial official to be assassinated in South India during the Indian independence movement. The British government built a memorial for him at Tuticorin in 1913. That memorial is currently in dilapidated condition.

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