Mosque in Ayodhya's Dhannipur village to be of same size as Babri Masjid, says trust

Lucknow: A mosque that will come up in Ayodhya pursuant to the Supreme Court verdict in the Ram Janmabhoomi case will be of the same size as Babri Masjid, said an office-bearer of the trust formed for its construction. The five-acre complex in Ayodhya’s Dhannipur village will also house a hospital, a library and a museum among others, the office-bearer said, adding that retired professor and noted food critic Pushpesh Pant will be consultant curator of the museum. “The complex of the mosque, which will be built in Dhannipur, will also have facilities like a hospital, a museum at the Indo-Islamic Research Centre. The mosque will be on 15,000 square feet, while the rest of the land will have these facilities,” Athar Hussain, the secretary and spokesperson of Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation (IICF), told PTI on Saturday. “Yesterday, noted food critic Pushpesh Pant gave his consent to curate the museum,” Hussain said. The Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board has formed the Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation (IICF), a trust, for the construction of the mosque on the five-acre plot. Hussain said Professor SM Akhtar of Jamia Millia Islamia will be the consultant architect of the project. Akhtar, the Head of the Department of Architecture at Jamia Millia Islamia, told PTI earlier that the entire complex will “bring together the ethos of India and the spirit of Islam”. The Uttar Pradesh government allotted the five-acre plot in Ayodhya’s Dhannipur village for the construction of the mosque on the directive of the Supreme Court. After a protracted legal tussle, the Supreme Court had on 9 November 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. The mosque in Ayodhya was demolished on 6 December, 1992 by kar sevaks who claimed that an ancient Ram temple stood at the same site. Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the bhoomi pujan ceremony to begin the construction of the Ram temple on 5 August.