Pak enacts law to turn havelis of Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar into museums

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa KP government of Pakistan has set the legal process rolling to buy the ancestral houses of two Indian film legendary actors and friends Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor in Peshawar The KP government has enacted a necessary section of the Land Acquisition Act 1894 of the state which authourises the government to take possession of both the houses on emergency basisThe amount will soon be released to the Deputy Commissioner DC of Peshawar for payment to the landowners The price of Dilip Kumars four marla 101 square metre house has been fixed at Rs 8056 lakh USD 50517 while that of Raj Kapoors six marla house 15175 square metre at Rs 150 crore USD 94061 by the Archeological Department of PakistanAccording to the Pakistani newspaper The Daily Jung for a long time the owners were not willing to sell these houses as the government was not willing to pay the market prices Their objections the prime location properties have been severely undervalued The owner of Dilip Kumars ancestral house has demanded Rs 25 crore for the property and the owner of the ancestral house in Peshawar of Raj Kapoor demanded Rs 200 crore The KP government claimed that the owners were demanding exorbitantly higher prices and blackmailing the authorities due to the importance of these premisesRaj Kapoors ancestral home known as Kapoor Haveli is located in the fabled Qissa Khwani Bazar It was built between 1918 and 1922 by the legendary actors father Prithvi Raj Kapoor Prithviraj Kapoor considered a pioneer of Indian film and theatre world and whose family has continued to entertain global audiences through cinema stayed in this Kapoor haveli It is there that the actor Prithvirajs son Raj Kapoor who became Indias youngest and most successful actordirector was bornThese buildings which are in shambles have been declared a national heritage by the provincial government of KP last year In the past the owners of the two buildings have made several attempts to demolish them for constructing commercial malls in view of their prime location Fortunately this was stropped as the archaeology department wanted to preserve them keeping in view their historic importanceThe two homes are right near the 2000yearold Qissa Khwani Bazaar or Market of Storytellers The Bazaar once served as a camping ground for the caravans of travelling merchants Sometimes professional storytellers held court here telling tales for the entertainment of the travellers This is our cultural heritage and we take pride in preserving it We are very proud that Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor were from Peshawar Abdul Samad director of archaeology and museums in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province had told the Pakistani media last yearDilip Kumar was born as Yusuf Khan to Lala Ghulam Sarwar Khan and Ayesha Begum in Peshawars Khudadad area The house is a five minute walk away from Prithviraj Kapoors house According to the actor Dilip Kumar his family of fruit merchants moved to Bombay seeking medical care under the surgeon Dr V L Parmar for Kumars elder brother Ayub Khan who had been injured in a horse riding accident The familys business and personal travails ultimately led Yusuf Khan to step in to help his father One such trip took him to Nainital where the movies production house Bombay Talkies owner Devika Rani accompanied by the master director Amiya Chakraborty ran into the handsome Yousuf The rest is history Incidentally Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor two great actors in the Indian film industry first and last appeared together in the film lsquoAndaaz in 1949Last year when the news broke about making Dilip Kumars house a museum his actress wife Saira Banu took to twitter to thank the KP government I wish the provincial government success in its efforts and sincerely hope that this time the dream comes true Mashallah My heart fills up with joy each time I receive the same news about the ancestral home of Yusuf Saheb in Peshawar in North West Frontier province which the provincial government has been repeatedly trying to turn into a monument for posterity Saira tweetedPresent day Indian superstar Shah Rukh Khan known as the King of Bollywood also has links to the area but his family home which is still in use has not suffered the same decline His cousin Maqsood Ahmad told the Dawn that Shah Rukhs father Taj Mohammad Khan and his brother Ghulam Mohammad Gama were staunch supporters of Congress Partition saw Taj Mohammad leaving Pakistan to escape arrest His brother Gama was imprisoned for seven yearsPeshawar suffered a huge knock to its cultural standing after becoming a hotbed of violence from the 1980s onwards bringing an end to the golden era of the city Militant groups including Taliban and TehrikeTaliban Pakistan TTP have destroyed and forced to close all cinema halls cultural theatres and clubs and music shopsThough the situation is improving the shadow of militancy is still not receded There is still a ban on Bollywood films in Pakistan but people of Peshawar love Hindi films After all Peshawar has delivered Bollywoods three Iconic superstarsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever