Trust unveils design of mosque, hospital to be built in Ayodhya

The design of a mosque and a hospital to be built on a five-acre land in Ayodhya’s Dhannipur village allocated by the Supreme Court in the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case was unveiled on Saturday at the IICF office in Lucknow. The Uttar Pradesh State Sunni Central Waqf Board had formed the trust, Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation, to construct the mosque and other utilities on the plot. “The construction work of the mosque was scheduled to begin from January 26, but in this period getting the map approved seems to be difficult, hence the construction is likely to begin from August 15,” Athar Husain, secretary of Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation, told reporters. Asked whether the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister will be invited for the foundation laying programme, Mr. Hussain said that as per Islamic traditions, no big function is organised while laying the foundation stone of a mosque. After a protracted legal tussle, the Supreme Court had on November 9 last year ruled in favour of the construction of a Ram temple at the disputed site in 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 holy town in Uttar Pradesh.