Site allotted for mosque at Dhannipur village. (Express Photo by Vishal Srivastav)
The Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board on Monday decided to accept the five acres of land allotted to it for the construction of a mosque near Ayodhya in accordance with the Supreme Court’s verdict last year in the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land case, news agency PTI reported.
The Board, at a meeting in Lucknow today, decided to constitute a trust to build the mosque in Dhannipur, some 30 km short of Ayodhya on the Lucknow-Gorakhpur highway. It will also construct an Indo-Islamic research center, a hospital, and a library on the allotted five-acre land.
The Board, which was one of the main litigants in the Ayodhya title suit, comprises of eight members from different fields. “The size of the mosque will be decided keeping in mind local needs,” board chairman Zufar Farooqui told reporters.
A senior district administration official had earlier told The Indian Express that this was the best possible land they could have provided for the construction of the mosque. Earlier this month, the allotment letter was handed over to the Waqf Board.
In November last year, the Supreme Court had paved the way for the construction of a Ram Temple by a trust at the disputed 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 holy town in Uttar Pradesh.