PLACES OF INTEREST

LASUR.

Lasur (Chopda taluka; 21° 15' N, 75° 10' E; p. 3,756), eight miles north-west of Chopda and 24 miles north of Erandol Road railway station (Surat-Bhusaval line), was formerly a town of considerable importance, held by the Thoke family. It has the ruins of a once formidable fort and towered gate and walls. There is a large pond in front of Thoke's mansion, vada, and outside the walls, close to the old suburb, is a fine well with flights of steps. Near the well are the remains of a mosque. The village is now nothing but a collection of mud huts and irregularly built houses. The fort was dismantled by the British, and the Thoke's mansion was burnt down a few years ago. The history of the  Thoke family illustrates the state of the then Khandesh district in the beginning of the nineteenth century. The Karnatak mercenaries, entertained by every petty proprietor, had made themselves so obnoxious, that Gulzar Khan Thoke, the holder of the strong fort of Lasur, enlisted a body of Arabs to oppose them. Unable to control or pay his Arabs, he used to let them loose on the country round, till at last the other proprietors, entering into a league against him, bribed his Arabs to assassinate him in Lasur and his eldest son Alliyar Khan in Chopda. A second son, Alif Khan, escaping from Lasur took refuge with Suryajirav Nimbalkar, of Yaval. Returning to Lasur with some Karnatak mercenaries lent him by the Nimbalkar, Alif Khan, on pretence of paying the Arabs their arrears, entered the fort, and the Karnatak troops, seizing the Arabs, put them to death. Instead of being in possession of his fort, Alif Khan found that the Karnatak troops had orders to hold the fort for their master the Nimbalkar. Driven to despair, Alif Khan allied himself with the Bhils and plundered without mercy. At last the Nimbalkar agreed to give up the fort for a money payment of lis. 10,000. Captain Briggs advanced this sum to the Thoke family and occupied the fort with British troops. Subsequently a member of the Thoke family was appointed keeper, rakhvaldar, of the hills and of the Bhiram pass, and the family served as headmen of the village. In the hills to the north of Lasur is an old enclosed temple of Nateshvar, forty-five feet long by thirty-eight broad. On one of the walls inside the temple is a writing apparently in Devnagari script.

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