Provincial government to buy ancestral house of actors Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar in Pakistan

The provincial government in Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province will purchase the ancestral houses of legendary Bollywood actors Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar, in order to conserve the historic buildings that are in dilapidated condition and face demolition threat, reported PTI.

According to an official, both buildings, which have been declared as national heritage, will be bought since the department of archaeology in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province has decided to allocate sufficient funds for the purchase. 

Head of department of archaeology Dr Abdus Samad Khan said that an official letter has been sent to the deputy commissioner of Peshawar to determine the cost of both the historic buildings, where the two greats of Indian cinema were born and raised in their early days before the partition. 

Raj Kapoor’s ancestral home, which is known as Kapoor Haveli and is situated in the fabled Qissa Khwani Bazar, was built between 1918 and 1922 by the actor’s grandfather Dewan Basheswarnath Kapoor. Kapoor and his uncle Trilok Kapoor were born in the building, which has been declared national heritage by the provincial government.

Dilip Kumar’s ancestral house is also located in the same locality. While the house is in shambles, it was declared as national heritage in 2014 by the then Nawaz Sharif government.

According to Khan, several attempts were made in the past by the owners of the building to demolish them for constructing commercial plazas in view of their prime location but all such moves were stopped as the archaeology department wanted to preserve them keeping in view their historic importance.

However, the owner of Kapoor Haveli, Ali Qadar, said that he did not want to demolish the building and made many contacts with the archaeology department officials to protect and preserve this historic structure, which is a national pride. He has demanded Rs 200 crore from the KP government to sell it out to the government.

The Pakistan government, in 2018, had decided to convert the Kapoor Haveli into a museum, heeding to a request by Rishi Kapoor, who died this year in Mumbai. However, the announcement to this effect could not be materialised despite a lapse of around two years.