The beautiful terracotta structure of archaeological value has lost its glory as many wall ornamentations were stolen or damaged, said a senior official of the Department of Archaeology.

The roof of the mosque caved in, the walls got damaged while plants, shrubs and trees have been growing all over the structure that has become a refuge for stray animals.

On the outside, the mosque is 52 feet 5 inches long and 39 feet 8 inches wide and the walls are 5 feet 9 inches to 7 feet thick. The mosque has ten doors and one large dome in the centre. There were three more domes over a terrace with columns. The three domes have already been destroyed while two of the columns damaged.

Inside the western wall of the mosque, there are three mihrabs with attractive ornamentations and figures of two blossomed lilies on one of the spandrels.

Many locals consider the mosque an icon of Satkhira. Historians date the mosque at 1678 in Dhulihar Pargana, now under Kaliganj upazila in Satkhira district.

The mosque was named 'Parobarpur' after the name of its builder Subedar Parobar Khan, the Pathan chief of the army of King Pratapaditya.

The mosque has architectural resemblances with Atia mosque of Tangail (established in 1608), the Shahi mosque of Narayanganj, Chumki mosque of West Bengal, India and Loton mosque, historians said.

In 1938, then Bengal Waqf commissioner declared the mosque a Waqf property and named it 'Nurullah Khan Waqf Estate'.

In 1965, Alhaj Sohrab Ali from Mukundapur village in Kaliganj upazila renovated the mosque.

Later, the Department of Architecture also made some renovation.

Meanwhile, the local influential people have grabbed around 16-acre land of the mosque, donated by Nurullah Khan, while only three acres of land is now under the possession of the mosque authorities.

The locals urged the government to recover the land.

The archaeology department should declare the mosque an archaeological site and renovate it to attract the tourists from home and abroad, they said.