Later in 1789, however, the company recaptured Darmadom. In 1788, Ravi Varma, a rebel hailing from the Zamorin dynasty, proclaimed his rule of the region and marched to Calicut with his Nair army.The Nair army was defeated under the superior Mysore lines led by M. Lally and Mir Asar Ali Khan. However, during the above operations, Ravi Varma assisted not less than 30,000 Brahmins to flee the country and take refuge in Travancore. In 1789, Tipu marched to Kozhikode with a 60,000-strong army, destroyed the fort, and razed the town to the ground. This event is known as the Fall of Calicut. In August 1788, the ruler of Parappanad, a chieftain of Nilamboor, Trichera Thiruppad, and many other Hindu nobles who had been carried away earlier to Coimbatore by Mysore under Tipu, were forcibly converted to Islam. Almost all female members and many male members of different Royal families such as Chirakkal (Kolathiri) and Calicut (Zamorin), and chieftains' families like Punnathoor, Nilamboor, Kavalapara and Azhvanchery Thamprakkal, fled to Travancore with all the Temple-wealth in their dominions, and found political asylum there from Mysore under Tipu, and temporarily settled down in different parts of Travancore. Even after the fall of Tipu Sultan in Srirangapatanam, many of these families preferred to remain in Travancore. The Chirackal (Kolathiri) were in fact a branch of Travancore Royal Family itself, originated in Thiruvananthapuram and based in Kannur, with a centuries-old tradition of mutual adoption of heirs with the latter. Tipu Sultan decided to tighten his grip on the possessions in Malabar and to occupy Travancore as he saw the control of ports and access of routes to them highly strategic. The control over Travancore was always been a dream of the Mysore sultans, and Hyder Ali's attempt to defeat Travancore was failed in 1767. The kingdom of Travancore had been a target of Tipu Sultan since the end of the Second Anglo-Mysore War.