Peshawar pre-partition 'Picture House' cinema razed for plaza

The historic ‘Picture House’ cinema, once a cultural landmark of Peshawar, has been demolished, marking the symbolic end of once-thriving movie culture in this city of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

- PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

The theatre at once-vibrant “Cinema Road” near the historic Qissa Khwani Bazaar in Peshawar was established in 1931, before the partition of India and Pakistan, by Sikh trader Daswat Singh.

The grandfather of Tayyab Raza, the current owner of the cinema, acquired it in 1947 from Singh. The ‘Picture House’, demolished to make way for a commercial plaza, remained a key cultural and entertainment hub in Peshawar for over eight decades and regularly hosted three shows a day.

The cinema, which showcased films in Pashto, Urdu, and Punjabi, gained immense popularity in the 1940s with the screening of Sohrab Modi’s film Pukar in 1940 and Sikandar in 1941.