Fact Check: Old video of Lulu Mall in Kochi shared as crowd gathered for the movie ‘Pathaan’

New Delhi (Vishvas News): Bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan’s new release ‘Pathaan’ has been embroiled in many viral controversies lately; a new social media post on Facebook claims that the opening shows of the SRK movie saw a huge craze and turnout at a mall in Bhagalpur, Bihar.

However, during the investigation, Vishvas News found the viral post fake as it has old clips of a midnight sale, which took place at Lulu Mall in Kochi, Kerala. 

Claim:

Facebook user Isteyaque Hussain Ansari shared a video (archive link) claiming, “After the posters were torn by some people of Boycott gang in #Bhagalpur, but now you can see Pathan movie has spread its charm in #Bhagalpur Never seen such craze before Craze for #Shahrukhkhan is unbelievable.”

Investigation:

Vishvas News first analysed the 25-second clip that shows the crowded mall; we can see hundreds standing on the stairs and in the lobby. 

On conducting a Google open search, we found this news report from July 10, 2022, which has similar showing tweets. It also has a quote from Joy Shadanandan, regional director of the LuLu Group, saying, “the intention of the midnight shopping was to ensure that the public can experience nightlife with less traffic, where they can purchase their daily needs in a more peaceful atmosphere.”

The story also had an embedded tweet of Paytm Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma from July 9, 2022, that mentions, “Remember iPhone launch queues? Here is our Kerala’s Lulu Mall sale queue at midnight.”

Interestingly, the ‘Pathaan’ movie was released in India on January 25, 2023.

A reverse image search, through InVID, on the key frames of the video also led us to identical posts with different claims on Twitter. This one credited the viral video to have happened at Pentagon mall in Haridwar.

In the viral post, one can see partial letters of a store name on the yellow signboard. As Vishvas News tried to identify the details, we could figure out the word ‘connect’ and discovered a store with the same name at Lulu Mall in Kochi.

Next, through search keywords ‘Lulu Connect Kochi’ we were directed to this website, which has the whereabouts through which we contacted, 

However, to be sure, we performed a Google Map search to identify the store’s location as seen in the viral post and the result was this. In the video, Connect store faces opposite to the stores of Fastrack and Mothercare, with the stairs and lobby in between.

Finally, to confirm, we contacted Hari Suhas, GM – of Lulu Mall Cochin, who said, “This is not from the movie Pathaan; this is from Lulu On Sale property, which took place in July 2022.”

Vishvas News also contacted Dainik Jagran’s Bhagalpur Editorial-in-charge, Sandeep Kumar, to cross-check if any such incident happened in Bhagalpur. He said, “No, there is no such mall in Bhagalpur; this report is absolutely wrong.”

The social scan of Isteyaque Hussain Ansari showed that he lives in Patna and works for the Indian Oil Corporation Ltd; his post was shared with 43 people, re-shared 12 times and received 12 comments.