Legendary actor Dilip Kumar, who died this morning in Mumbai, had normally reminisced about his ancestral residence in Peshawar (situated in present-day Pakistan), exactly where he was born prior to the partition. Dilip Kumar, born Muhammed Yusuf Khan, grew up in a haveli in the heart of Peshawar city. Located in the fabled Qissa Khwani Bazar, this is the residence exactly where Dilip Kumar spent his early childhood prior to he accomplished stardom in the city of dreams. Incidentally, Dilip Kumar’s haveli neighboured the ancestral home of yet another legend of Hindi cinema – his lifelong pal and modern, Raj Kapoor. The two grew up in neighbouring havelis that have been taken beneath the possession of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Directorate of Archaeology and Museums last month and will now be converted into museums.
In 2014, Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor’s ancestral houses had been declared national heritage internet sites by the then Nawaz Sharif government. They hit the headlines in September last year right after the provincial government announced that it would obtain each properties and turn them into museums right after restoration. At that time, Dilip Kumar had received a glimpse of his ancestral residence thanks to a journalist in Pakistan.
Journalist Shiraz Hassan had posted 4 photographs of Dilip Kumar’s ancestral residence, which is more than a one hundred years old, on Twitter. The actor thanked him for sharing the photographs and requested other Peshawar residents to share photographs of his ancestral home.
Thank you for sharing this. Requesting all in #Peshawar to share photographs of my ancestral residence (if you have clicked the pic) and tag #DilipKumarhttps://t.co/bB4Xp4IrUB
— Dilip Kumar (@TheDilipKumar) September 30, 2020
Last month, Director (Archaeology) Dr Abdul Samad told Pakistani news outlet Dawn that the Directorate took possession of each properties from their present owners right after their ownership was transferred to the provincial government.
“Now, both residences are officially the properties of the Directorate of Archaeology,” he stated, according to news agency ANI, adding that the directorate would carry out restoration work on the properties prior to turning them into museums.
Dr Samad stated the Directorate had also paid the determined cost of each proprieties to the DC Peshawar for additional payment to the owners.
Dilip Kumar died this morning in the Mumbai hospital exactly where he had been admitted for about one week. He was 98. “He passed away due to prolonged illness at 7.30 am,” Dr Jalil Parkar, who had been treating Dilip Kumar, told news agency PTI. Dilip Kumar was buried with state honours at the Juhu Cemetery in Mumbai’s Santacruz on Wednesday evening even as social media overflowed with tributes to the star of iconic films such as Mughal-e-Azam and Devdas.