Video of Navratri Celebrations in UAE’s Lulu Hypermarket Shared as From Lucknow

The video shows a flash mob performing on the occasion of Navratri in UAE's LuLu Hypermart.

Fact-Check | The caption suggests that the celebration happened in Lucknow's LuLu Mall. 

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A video of a flash mob dancing, in what appears to be a mall, is being shared with a claim that the it happened in Lucknow's LuLu Mall on the occasion of Navratri.

In July, a controversy had erupted after a purported video showing some people offering namaz inside the Lucknow mall was shared on the internet.

Following this, Akhil Bhartiya Hindu Mahasabha staged a protest outside the mall and a police complaint was filed in the matter, which even led to the arrest of four people.

Alluding to the same incident, social media users have shared the video questioning the mall authorities about the Navratri celebrations when they had put up notices prohibiting religious prayers inside its premises.

A board inside Lulu Mall's premises. 

However, we found that the video is from LuLu Hypermarket in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and not Lucknow. A longer version of the video was uploaded on their YouTube channel.

CLAIM

The claim suggests that some people were seen dancing in Lucknow's LuLu Mall on the occasion of Navratri.

It goes on to state that nobody objected to this celebration, but the same people had a huge problem when namaz was offered by a few people inside the mall.

At the time of writing this article, the video had garnered more than 22,000 views.

An archive of the post can be seen here. 

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

An archive of a similar claim can be found here.

WHAT WE FOUND

We performed a Google search using keywords such as "LuLu Mall navratri dance celebration."

This led us to a video uploaded on 26 September on an unverified YouTube channel called Sandeep K_P. It was a longer version of the viral video, which was titled, "Navratri Dandiya Flash Mob Dance @ Lulu Dubai UAE."

In the beginning of the video, we noticed that several boards and standees had text written in Arabic.

Texts in Arabic can be seen in the background. 

(Source: Altered by The Quint) 

Further, we found that it also showed the outside view of the shop where LuLu Hypermarket can be seen.

LuLu Hypermarket can be seen written in the outside view of the shop.

(Source: Altered by The Quint) 

We then searched the official website of UAE'S LuLu Hypermarket which had a YouTube channel linked to it. After going through their channel, we came across a longer version of the viral video.

It was uploaded on 5 October and the description mentioned, "Visit your nearest #LuLuUAE now to enjoy the spirit of festivity and get your favourite food, sweets, fashion and pooja accessories."

This clearly proves that the video is from UAE outlet of LuLu Hypermarket and not from Lucknow, as claimed.

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