The construction of the Dhannipur mosque project in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, is set to formally begin on January 26. The mosque will be built following the Supreme Court verdict in the Ram Janmabhoomi case.
The Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation (IICF) trust said it was planning to hold a ceremony to mark the beginning of the project on January 26. A tree sapling plantation drive and raising of the national flag will mark the formal beginning of the project, it said.
“At a meeting of the Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation (IICF), it was decided that Republic Day will be celebrated with the start of the Dhannipur Mosque Project, which includes a hospital, a museum, a library, a community kitchen, the Indo-Islamic Cultural Research Centre, a publication house and a mosque,” news agency PTI quoted secretary and spokesperson of the trust Athar Hussain as saying on Sunday.
The spokesperson further said at 8.30 am on January 26, the national flag will be hoisted on the five-acre plot of the project. This will be followed by plantation of tree saplings by the chief trustee and the member trustees of the IICF.
At a virtual meet chaired by IICF president Zufar Ahmad Farooqi and attended by all the nine trustees, the progress of the trust activities, especially the procedural delay in getting the 12-A/80-G clearances under the Income-Tax Act and the proceedings for the opening of an FCRA account, was discussed, the statement said according to PTI.
“It was decided to make a formal beginning of the project by applying for the plan clearance from the Ayodhya District Board and start the soil testing process at the five-acre plot,” it added.
As the focus of the project is to give community service in the area with a determined effort to create awareness on climate change, Hussain proposed that the formal start of the project should be made by planting tree saplings on the five-acre plot of land.
As envisaged in the project, a green area, which will have plants from all over the world — from the Amazon rainforest to areas in Australia that report bushfires — and from all different geographical regions of India will be developed to create awareness on the imminent threat posed by climate change.
Earlier, Hussain had said a mosque measuring 15,000 square feet will be built in Ayodhya’s Dhannipur village. It will be of the same size as that of the Babri mosque. The shape of the mosque may be completely different from that of other mosques. It may be square-shaped like the Kaaba Sharif in Mecca, as hinted by the architect, SM Akhtar.
The Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board had formed the IICF, a trust, for the construction of the Dhannipur mosque.
WHAT LOCALS SAID?
India Today visited the proposed site and asked locals about the mosque. The village head of Dhannipur, Rakesh Yadav, said that people are excited about such a huge mosque being constructed in the village.
Yadav said that there around 1,300 people in Dhannipur village and that they have always maintained communal harmony.
He also said that the decision to build a hospital in the mosque complex will help local residents.
Lauding the construction of the mosque, he said that the new mosque in the village will bring new possibilities of development for everyone in the area. “Locals also believe that this is a development for the village,” he said.
After a protracted legal tussle, the Supreme Court on November 9 last year had paved the way for the construction of a Ram Temple at the disputed Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid site at Ayodhya, and directed the Centre to allot an alternative five-acre plot to the Sunni Waqf Board for building a new mosque at a “prominent” place in the town in Uttar Pradesh.
The state government allotted a five-acre land in Dhannipur village in Sohaval Tehsil of Ayodhya. The blueprint of the mosque was unveiled on December 19.
