A dress code dispute at an upscale mall in Ghaziabad has left a Muslim shopkeeper out of pocket, out of a shop, and filing complaints.
Mohammad Saifullah, a Greater Noida resident, leased a shop at Opulent Mall on GT Road in October 2025 — paying Rs 25,000 a month, signing an 11-month agreement, and putting down a Rs 25,000 advance. He says he had borrowed Rs 7 lakh to open this mobile shop on October 28. By the next evening, it ran into trouble.
Saifullah’s younger brother Faiz sat at the shop. Both of them wear a kurta-pyjama, a skullcap, and have a beard. The day after the inauguration, the mall management summoned them to their office. The attire would not be allowed, they were told. A point in the permission letter granted by the mall management too mentions that “workers are allowed in the mall premises in proper outfits”.
However, Saifullah claims that the management team – led by Vijay Kumar Verma, who is in-charge of administration and security at the mall, told them that the mall owners had prohibited any shop owner or attendant to don religious attire.
The shop stayed shut for days. When Faiz tried reopening it on November 5, themanagement allegedly hurled abuses at him and forced the shutters down again. The pattern repeated on January 6.
When the brothers finally decided to vacate the shop in January, the management handed them an electricity bill of around Rs 16,000, refusing to release their merchandise until it was paid. “We have been subjected to immense mental harassment – and all this occurred precisely when our sister’s wedding was taking place back home,” claimed Saifullah.
The shop’s actual owner, Manoj Dhupar, says he tried to intervene but got nowhere. “My shop is currently lying vacant… I wasn’t even aware that such policies existed here. I do not like any of this.”
The brothers say they have been in the same attire all along, and no one had objected even when the lease was finalised.
Saifullah and Faiz called the police helpline during one heated confrontation on November 9. The police, they say, told them to go to the local station instead – where they filed a complaint but received no help. Asked for comment, Sihani Gate SHO Kuldeep Dixit refused to respond and instead called himself a “kattar (staunch) Hindu”.
On March 9, the brothers filed a formal complaint with Ghaziabad’s Police Commissioner and District Magistrate.
This story was originally published in newslaundry.com. Read the full story here.