Legends of His Death
Local legend is that twice the noose broke down and he fell down alive, for which Yusuf Khan ordered the troops to remove a Neck brace before hanging. A sepoy guarding the Body of Yusuf Khan previous night reported to the Arcot Nawab, that Yusuf Khan appeared in his dream intending to return on the third day after his death and capture Madurai. The agitated Nawab ordered his men to chop his body into several parts and place them all over his domains. As went his Head to Trichinopoly alias Tiruchirappalli alias Trichy, arms to Palayamkottai, legs to Tanjore and Travancore for public viewing later buried at Periyakulam city near Madurai, to instilling caution and fear, later buried there. The remaining body was buried at Madurai.
In 1808, a small square mosque was erected over the tomb in Samattipuram, in Madurai, which exists to this day on the left of the road to Theni, at Kaalavaasal, a little beyond the toll-gate, and is known as 'Khan Sahib's pallivasal'.
At the time of his death, Yusuf Khan had a son, who must have been 2 or 3 years old. Yusuf Khan's wife Maasa and the little boy vanished from history after the hanging. They might have escaped to Tirunelveli (?Alwarthirunagari) or Travancore.
The descendants of Baba Sahib, Yusuf Khan's physician, live around Krishnan Koil in Virudhunagar District. They still practise native medicine and bone-setting.
The Madurai fort, which Yusuf Khan had defended so passionately during the two sieges in 1763 and 1764 was pulled down in end of the nineteenth century. His lodgement, according to the French map, must have been inside a quadrangle bounded by West Masi Street, South Masi Street and Khansa Mettu Street. (Khansa Mettu Street is a corruption of Khan Sahib Mettu Street).
The fort in Palayamkottai, he had repaired and used so well during his earlier wars with the poligars, was dismantled in the middle of the nineteenth century. Only parts of the western bastion, (now housing "Medai Police Station" ), the eastern bastion (now housing the Tirunelveli Museum) and a few short segments of the eastern wall are remaining.
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Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
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