Pakistan to convert Rishi Kapoor's house into museum

The Pakistan government has decided to convert Bollywood star Rishi Kapoor's ancestral home in the Qissa Khwani Bazar in Peshawar into a museum soon, heeding to a request by the actor.

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said the Pakistan government will make the actor's house into a museum.

"There was a call from Rishi Kapoor. He requested that his family's home in Peshawar should be made into a museum or some sort of institution. We have accepted his request," he told a group of visiting Indian journalists.

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Shehryar Khan Afridi said Kapoor telephoned him to preserve his family’s house in Peshawar and “we are responding positively to his request.”

"He had called me and talked about making his ancestral home into a museum. Now the federal and provincial governments are working on this and will transform the house into a museum soon," Afridi said.

The Kapoor Haveli in Qissa Khwani Bazar was built by Basheswarnath Kapoor, the father of Bollywood icon Prithviraj Kapoor.

Raj Kapoor, the son of Prithviraj Kapoor, was born in Peshawar on December 14, 1924. The actor-director is best known for a string of hit films he made in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Kapoor family left Peshawar after the Partition in 1947.