Fact Check: Video from Kerala shared as crowd thronging Lucknow's Lulu mall to watch 'Laal Singh Chaddha'

Aamir Khan starrer 'Laal Singh Chaddha', the ambitious Hindi remake of Hollywood masterpiece 'Forrest Gump', is  receiving a...

Aamir Khan starrer 'Laal Singh Chaddha', the ambitious Hindi remake of Hollywood masterpiece 'Forrest Gump', is receiving a lukewarm response in theatres, say reports.

Contrary to this observation, several people on social media are sharing a video of a massive crowd at a shopping mall purportedly to get tickets for the movie. The video showed people fighting for space in a jam-packed mall.

"People throng to see the film Lal Singh Chaddha at Lulu Mall, Lucknow," a user wrote in Hindi while tweeting the video.

An AFWA investigation revealed that this footage is unrelated to 'Laal Singh Chaddha' or Lucknow Lulu. It was shot at a mall in Kerala ahead of a Malayalam movie's promotional event.

AFWA Probe

Several netizens had aggressively replied to the tweet saying that the video was from Kerala and not Lucknow as claimed. One such reply had a screenshot of an India Today video with a Hindi report. The partly visible title of the video link read, "Thallumaala promotions can".

A Google search helped to spot the video from August 10. "Thallumaala promotions cancelled as fans swarm Kozhikode mall | Watch," the full headline read.

According to this article, a promotional event for the Malayalam movie 'Thallumaala' was cancelled due to a large crowd turnout at HiLITE Mall in Kozhikode district. The incident caused a major traffic jam and the visuals of the crowded mall went viral on social media.

The visuals looked similar to those being shared now, as from Lulu Malla in Lucknow.

Checking further, we found an article by the Indian Express from August 11 that had tweets about the crowding at the Kerala mall. One of these was similar to the video now being shared from Lucknow.

Hindustan Times also used the visuals to report on the "scary fan frenzy" from Kerala

Several Malayalam YouTube channels on August 10 used the same visuals to report the cancelled event in Kozhikode. 'Laal Singh Chaddha' was released a day after on August 11.

ALSO READ | Fact Check: Positive ‘Dangal’ review shared as ‘Laal Singh Chaddha's’ audience reaction amid controversies

Hence, it is clear that a video from Kerala is used to claim people are reaching Luckow's Lulu Mall to watch ‘Laal Singh Chaddha'.