Ancestral houses of Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar in Pakistan finds a place in buy list

The provincial government in Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa plans to buy 25 pre-partition era buildings, including the ancestral houses of legendary Bollywood actors Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar, which have been declared as national heritage, sources said.

Raj Kapoor’s ancestral home, known as Kapoor Haveli, is situated in the fabled Qissa Khwani Bazar. It was built before the Partition of British India, between 1918 and 1922, by the actor’s grandfather Dewan Basheswarnath Kapoor.

Raj Kapoor and his uncle Trilok Kapoor were born in the building. It has been declared national heritage by the provincial government.

Actor Dilip Kumar’s over 100-year-old ancestral house.  

Veteran actor Dilip Kumar’s over 100-year-old ancestral house is also located in Peshawar’s Qissa Khwani Bazaar. The house is in a shambles and was declared as a national heritage under the Federal Antiquities Act in 2014 by the Nawaz Sharif government.

The provincial government has allocated Rs. 61 crore for buying 25 pre-partition era buildings, having archaeological importance, including the ancestral houses of actors Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar, they said.

The Department of Archaeology will be given a grant of Rs. 70 lakh to prepare a feasibility report of the buildings during the current fiscal, they said.

After the approval of the feasibility report, the process to buy these buildings will begin, they added.