Faizul Hasan Qadri, the 83-year-old retired postmaster from Kaser Kalan in western Uttar Pradesh’s Bulandshahr district well known for constructing a mini ‘Taj Mahal’ in memory of his deceased wife, succumbed to injuries after a road accident in Bulandshahr late Thursday night.

According to his family, Faizul Hasan Qadri breathed his last at a private hospital in Aligarh where he was taken after being hit by an unidentified vehicle outside his house in Kaser Kalan village. “He was taking a walk outside his house around 10.30pm on Thursday when some unidentified vehicle hit him. He was lying injured and I received information around 1am. I rushed him to a local hospital and later to Aligarh where he died around 11am on Friday. He got injured two years back as well after he had fallen from his bicycle and thereafter used a walker most of the time,” Mohammad Aslam, Qadri’s nephew, said.

Qadri had shot to fame for constructing a replica of the Taj Mahal adjacent to his house in the village and for donating his land for a government girl’s school, which is now fully constructed, adjacent to the structure.

Qadri’s wife Tajamulli Begum had died due to throat cancer in December, 2011. The two had been married in 1953.The couple did not have any children. Qadri started the construction of a replica of the Taj Mahal after his wife’s death. He buried his wife inside the structure and left a space alongside her grave where he had wished to be buried after his death. His dream, however, came to a standstill in February, 2014 when he ran out of finances but vowed he will complete the structure from his pension savings.

In August, 2015 Qadri was called by former UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav to Lucknow where the later had politely turned down financial assistance Yadav had offered for completing the structure. “He had instead requested for the construction of a government-run girls’ inter college for which he later donated his four bighas of land. The school is now completed. He had saved nearly Rs 2 lakh and was about to go with me to Jaipur for purchasing marble stone which he wanted to be studded to his mini Taj Mahal to make it look like the original one in Agra,” Aslam said.

According to the police, the family had refused an autopsy. “The family did not want the postmortem to be conducted,” Yogendra Singh, SHO, Dibai police station, Bulandshahr, said.

For the construction, Qadri had sold a piece of his agricultural land besides his wife’s gold and silver jewellery and started work with the help of a local mason. “The structure is built on my own land and I have tried to plant some trees around it and have a small water body at its rear side. However, work has mostly been held up due to finances as marble costs are high. A number of people have offered me money but I have refused to accept any so far. This is my personal endeavour for my late wife and embodies my love for her. So I should do this on my own,” Qadri had told HT during a visit in August 2015.

Now, Qadri’s nephew is keen to fulfil his uncle’s wishes. “The structure is still waiting for the marble. We will now bury him beside his wife’s grave inside the same structure. I will try to get the structure completed since he is no more now,” Aslam said.

Share This Post