This is a very surprising and an unexpected news update of sorts. No one was really expecting this to happen but now it’s finally confirmed that Pakistan Government buys Bollywood stars Raj Kapoor’s and Dilip Kumar’s ancestral homes in Peshawar.
Honestly this year of 2020 has been really startling for all the people around the globe as the entire world just got stopped and became still with global lockdown due to the unforeseen COVID 19 pandemic.
This is can be seen as a news of happiness in a way as finally the Pakistan Government buys Bollywood stars Raj Kapoor’s and Dilip Kumar’s Ancestral homes in Peshawar.
ALSO READ – Throwback: When Rishi Kapoor Acted In Raj Kapoor’s Last Film Henna
The plans of conserving and thereby also preserving these ancestral homes as a part of their national and cultural heritage of Pakistan have already started and are underway with it as well.
This recent development just came in after the Department Of Archaeology in the Khyber-Pakhtunwa province of Pakistan has made up their mind and also decided to give adequate and sufficient money funds to the Pakistan Government for purchasing and buying both the ancestral houses situated in the heartland of Pakistan that is Peshawar.
The cult and legendary prolific Bollywood actors Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar’s ancestral houses which are located in the heart of Pakistan’s Peshawar city have been facing several demolition threats lately owing to the property being in a dilapidated and bad condition.
However the archaeology department in the Khyber-Pakhtunwa province of Pakistan has made up their mind strongly to give sufficient money funds to their government for purchasing both these properties and are trying to preserve them as a part of their country’s national and cultural heritage.
According to the leading Indian news agency’s reports, an official was quoted saying that, “The archaeology department in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province has decided to allocate sufficient funds to the government for purchasing those two buildings, which have been declared as the national heritage”.
Also in the Peshawar city, there are approximately around 1800 structures which are more than 300 years old. Further the head of the archaeology department Abdus Samad Khan said that to decide the buying costs of both these ancestral and historical properties where two legendary actors of the Indian cinema were born in their earlier days before the partition, an official letter has been sent to the Deputy commissioner in Peshawar.
Mr. Khan continuing on the same lines also explained the fact that in the past for creation and construction of commercial plazas in view of their prime location being the same, several attempts have been made to demolish both these ancestral and historic houses of greatest actors in Indian cinema i.e. Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar but these attempts had been stopped keeping in mind the historic, national and cultural heritage of the country being a birth place to the biggest stalwarts of Indian cinema.
However, the owner and of Kapoor Haveli Ali Qadar told a leading digital news website that he had made several attempts to contact the archaeology department officials to protect and preserve the historic building which is surely a national pride for Pakistan as he didn’t really wanted it to get demolished.
Now while selling this prime and historically important national property, the owner has made a demand of about 200 crores from the Khyber-Pakhtunwa Government.
Raj Kapoor’s ancestral home which is very popularly known as Kapoor Haveli is situated and resides in the fabled Qissa Khwani Bazar. It was made and built between the years of 1918 and 1922 by late bollywood actor Raj Kapoor’s grandfather Dewan Basheswarnath Kapoor. The legendary stalwart actor and his uncle Trilok Kapoor were born in the building.
Veteran and cult bollywood actor Dilip Kumar’s ancestral house is also located in the same locality. In the year 2014, the then Nawaz Sharif government of Pakistan declared it as national heritage as it was over a 100 years old.
Also in the year 2018, listening and paying attention to a request by late actor Rishi Kapoor who died this year in Mumbai, the Pakistan government had finally decided to convert the Kapoor Haveli into a museum. However, even through a time lapse of around two years, the announcement to this effect could not be materialized and implemented by them till date.