A social media post accompanying a video showing visuals of a large crowd gathering in a mall is being widely shared. The video is being shared claiming that visuals show the public that gathered to watch Shah Rukh Khan’s ‘Pathaan’ movie in Bhagalpur. Through this article let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Visuals of huge crowd gathering to watch ‘Pathaan’ movie in Bhagalpur.
Fact: These visuals show large crowds that gathered for a clearance sale at Lulu mall in Thiruvananthapuram. This happened in July 2022. Multiple news agencies have reported these visuals back then. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
While long queues and big crowds were reported at the time of Pathaan’s release in different parts of the country, the viral visuals are not related to Pathaan, as these visuals show a huge gathering for a clearance sale in Thiruvananthapuram.
A reverse image search of the screenshots of the viral video yielded multiple news reports that reported these visuals. According to these reports, the visuals show people gathered at Lulu mall in Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram, as a midnight sale was launched. And this happened earlier in July 2022.
Further, we found a video report by Hindustan Times, which features similar visuals as in the viral video. Earlier, protests have taken place in many parts of the country and in Bhagalpur as well opposing the release of the movie (here & here).
To sum it up, old visuals of huge crowds that gathered at a mall in Kerala are passed off as crowd for ‘Pathaan’ release in Bhagalpur.
