- Rishi Kapoor made a call to Pakistani authorities
- Pakistani authorities have accepted to turn the house into a museum
- The conversion is said to be completed soon
Dubai: The Pakistan government will turn Bollywood actor Rishi Kapoor’s ancestral house in the country into a museum after he requested for it. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi confirmed, according to news reports, that the home that’s located in Peshawar will soon be turned in a museum.
According to The Indian Express, an English-language daily newspaper, Qureshi told a group of visiting Indian journalist that the actor had called to request to convert the property into a museum or an institution. The request was soon accepted by Pakistani authorities.
The call was supposedly made to Pakistan’s Interior Minister Shehryar Khan Afridi, who said that Kapoor telephoned him to preserve his family’s home.
Afridi added that the federal and provincial governments are working on completing the request and the mansion will soon be transformed.
The Kapoor Haveli (mansion) is located in Qissa Khwani Bazaar, a densely populated marketplace in the provincial capital of Peshawar.
It was built by Basheswarnath Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor’s great-grandfather and father of Bollywood superstar Prithviraj Kapoor. Prithviraj was first to enter the Indian film industry amongst the Kapoor family.
Rishi’s father, Raj Kapoor, was born in Peshawar on December 14, 1924. The actor and director is best known for a number of hit movies he made in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Kapoor family left Peshawar after the Partition in 1947.
In 2016, the Kapoor Haveli had suffered partial demolition that Pakistani authorities intervened to halt, according to the country’s Dawn newspaper. The demolition was initiated upon request of neighbours who said that the structure was fragile and threatened their lives, according to the report. However, members of the archaeology directorate got involved and helped preserve the historic building.
In the past, Rishi has been in the limelight for his comments regarding Pakistan. He has also expressed his desire to visit Pakistan in past interviews and tweets, too.
