on november 22, 2019, the new england bureau chief of "the new york times", ellen barry, published a lengthy piece of investigative journalism in which she said she had discovered that wilayat khan in fact had no connection to the awadh royal family. rather, she was the widow of the former registrar of lucknow university, inayatullah butt. barry found her oldest son, shahid butt, living in the uk and he had told her the true story.