The trust entrusted with building a mosque and hospital in Ayodhya’s Dhannipur village on Friday quoting a revenue official stated that the five-acre plot allotted for the project by the Uttar Pradesh government was not disputed land.
The Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation (IICF) issued the clarification days after two Delhi-based sisters moved the Allahabad High Court claiming ownership of the five-acre plot in Sohawal Tehsil of Ayodhya. They claimed their father, Gyan Chandra Punjabi, had come to India during Partition in 1947 from Punjab and settled in Faizabad (now Ayodhya) district, where he was allegedly allotted a 28-acre land in Dhannipur village by the Nazul Department for five years, which he continued to possess beyond that period. Later, his name was included in the revenue records but it was struck down from the records against which their father filed an appeal before the Additional Commissioner, Ayodhya, which was allowed, they claimed.
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The petition could be taken up by the court on February 8.
In the petition, Rani Kapoor alias Rani Baluja and Rama Rani Punjabi demanded that the authorities be restrained from transferring the land to the Sunni Waqf Board till the pendency of dispute before the settlement officer.
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Athar Hussain, secretary of the IICF, issued a statement quoting “bandobast adhikari chakbandi” Rajesh Pandey to state that “there is no dispute regarding the Dhannipur mosque land”.
The land dispute was in the neighbouring village of Sheikhpur Jafar, he said. A reply would be filed in the HC regarding the petition.
With the unfurling of the tricolour, singing of the national anthem and planting of saplings of various trees like tamarind, mango, neem and guava at the five-acre plot in Dhannipur village here, the formal construction of the Dhannipur mosque project was launched on Republic Day. The soil testing procedure for the structure was also initiated before the actual construction begins.
The land was allotted to the trust by the State government on directions of the Supreme Court in the verdict of the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi title dispute.
The project would have three parts — the mosque based on a modern design and a solar panel roof; a multi-speciality 200-bed hospital and community kitchen; and the third, an Indo Islamic Cultural Research Centre, consisting of a library, underground museum, and publication house.