PESHAWAR — The historic ancestral homes of legendary Bollywood icons Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor, located in the heart of Peshawar, Pakistan, are facing an imminent threat of total collapse. Local heritage enthusiasts, residents, and cultural experts have raised urgent alarms following a series of harsh weather conditions and recent earthquake tremors that have severely compromised the structural integrity of these decades-old landmarks. Despite being declared national heritage sites by the Pakistan government a decade ago, both properties have suffered from prolonged bureaucratic delays and a lack of active preservation, leaving them highly vulnerable as the monsoon season approaches.
The century-old Kapoor Haveli, situated in the Dhaki Nalbandi area near the famous Qissa Khwani Bazar, was once celebrated as a prime example of Peshawar’s rich architectural history. Built between 1918 and 1922 by Dewan Basheswarnath Kapoor, the father of pioneering actor Prithviraj Kapoor, this multi-room mansion is the birthplace of the legendary showman Raj Kapoor. Today, the building is a shadow of its former self, featuring deep foundational cracks and crumbling facades that worsened dramatically after recent seismic activity and heavy rains. Local shopkeepers and neighbors have expressed deep anxiety, noting that the unstable walls pose a direct safety hazard to the surrounding commercial busy streets and could trigger a major accident at any moment if left unaddressed.
A short distance away in the Mohallah Khudadad neighborhood, the ancestral home of cinematic titan Dilip Kumar is in an equally critical state of decay. Once a bustling family residence filled with life, the traditional Peshawari structure has transformed into an abandoned ruin where the roofs of multiple rooms have already caved in completely. Every subsequent rainfall causes more of the remaining masonry to wash away into piles of debris. Cultural advocates point out that while the provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa previously approved millions of rupees to acquire these properties and convert them into public museums, no real restoration work has materialized on the ground due to funding shortages and administrative paralysis. Heritage lovers stress that without immediate structural intervention rather than empty official promises, these physical anchors of shared South Asian cinematic history will be permanently lost to time.
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