Hoisting of the national flag and a tree plantation drive on the 72nd Republic Day marked the beginning of the project to construct a mosque at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh.
Members of the Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation (IICF) trust will build the mosque in Dhannipur village which is about 25 km from the Ram Janmabhoomi site where the Ram temple is being built.
The event began at 8.15 am on Tuesday and the flag was hoisted by Zafar Ahmad Farooqui, the chief of the trust.
In December, the trust unveiled the futuristic design of the building -- a modern, egg-shaped solar powered building without any dome or minarets. The first phase of the project will have a hospital, and a community kitchen that will serve at least 1,000 nutritious meals each day, a museum, a library, Indo-Islamic Research Centre, and a publication house, along with the mosque.
As per the blueprint released by the Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation (IICF), the mosque will be of the same size as that of the Babri Masjid.
The Supreme Court in its landmark 2019 verdict facilitated the construction of a temple at the Ram Janmabhoomi site and a mosque in the same district.
The five-acre plot had been given to the Sunni Waqf Board in lieu of the land on which the Babri mosque stood, prior to the demolition. This was as per the verdict of the Supreme Court in November 2019.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)