Sharing its boundary wall with a multistorey building of a private school with a sprawling campus in upscale Sushant Lok Phase-III township here, stands a partially built, unplastered structure with rusted iron rods protruding from the pillars of the yet-to-be-finished first floor.
One might be tempted to quickly dismiss this weather-beaten building on a barely 800 sq m plot as an abandoned structure until they spot a board on its entry gate, announcing the premises as Anjuman Jama Masjid.
Situated in Sector 57, this lone mosque on a Government-allocated land in New Gurugram caters to almost half of the city’s municipal area spread across south and east zones and a large section of the floating population commuting to the Millennium City daily for work.
Construction stalled
Barely six months after the construction on this plot began in 2004, a few real estate agents moved the court taking the plea that the land allocated for the mosque was earmarked for other purposes.
“Only the basement could be constructed when the court stayed any further construction. In 2013, the construction for the ground and the first floor began after we won the case in the High Court. But the opposite party moved the Supreme Court and the construction was stayed yet again. This time we did not even find time to remove the shuttering for the ongoing construction. The construction was immediately stopped and the trust ended up paying lakhs for the shuttering,” said Mohammad Abul, vice-president, Haryana Anjuman Charitable Trust, pointing at the wooden planks still firmly stuck in the first-floor roof the building.
Unplastered building
Not just that, the entire building is without plaster, the walls on the ground floor are also incomplete exposing the worshippers to extreme weather conditions throughout the year. A portion of the ground is paved with bricks for the visitors to walk around and a temporary room has been built along the boundary wall for the imam to stay.
Amid the growing population, both the residents and the floating population, and the raging controversy over the offering of Juma Namaz in the open, the trust decided to hold prayers in four shifts every Friday from 12.30 p.m. to 2.30 p.m. to accommodate the maximum worshippers. People from around a radius of 10-15 km visit the mosque on Fridays for the Juma Namaz. Mohammad Saeed, a retired Central Government engineer, said he drove to the mosque every Friday from Sector 50. Gulshad, from Bihar, said he came to the mosque on a motorcycle from Sector 46 for the Friday prayers since the controversy over namaz erupted.
Aslam Khan, chairman, Haryana Anjuman Charitable Trust, said around 1,500 people offered Friday prayers every week. The number of devotees in the mosque for Juma Namaz has gone up by 25%-30% in the wake of the controversy.
Pleas rejected
“In 2002, the Government allocated land for 17 temples, two gurdwaras, one church and one mosque. Though one mosque is not enough in view of the growing population of Muslims, the stay on construction has added to our woes. We can accommodate more people once the building is completed. We hope the Supreme Court to expedite the hearing in the matter in view of this controversy and settle the case at the earliest,” said Mr. Khan.
Though two Muslim community trusts had applied for five mosque sites in Gurugram in response to the Government advertisement seeking applications for allocation of religious sites in 2016, they failed to get any. The India Islamic Research Centre too sought land for a building for social and religious activities in Sector 39 earlier this year, but the application was rejected. The only other mosque in New Gurugram is on the Waqf Board land near Rajiv Chowk.
Visitors disappointed
The imam at Anjuman Masjid said the partially built mosque also gave off a bad impression to the foreign visitors from the community, mostly coming to the city for treatment at posh private hospitals. The visitors, said the imam, often offered financial help thinking that the construction was left mid-way due to paucity of funds. “The visitors come to the mosque with great excitement searching it on Google Maps, but feel disappointed to see the dilapidated structure,” said the Imam.
