Leaving shadows of the past, eye on the future for Ayodhya mosque

Regardless of the fact that the new mosque would be far from the city, Athar Hussain says that there is no question of discontent among Muslims

As members of the trust tasked with building a mosque to replace the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya deliberated in virtual meetings during the lockdown months, the exigencies of public health in a post-Covid world weren’t lost on them.

“With so much news focused on the global medical emergency and shortage of beds, we unanimously felt that we would be having a charitable hospital at least in the mosque complex,” says Athar Hussain, secretary of the Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation, the trust set up by the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board.

Last week, the trust picked S M Akhtar, an architecture