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 as a matter of religious practice. 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........

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