Noida: A video purportedly showing visitors stealing flowers and pots from the recently concluded Noida Flower Festival 2026 has triggered widespread outrage on social media, with many users questioning civic sense and respect for public property.
According to officials, the incident occurred during the final hours of the four-day festival on Sunday. The widely circulated clip shows several people removing flowers and plants from decorative installations and display areas. Some festival-goers are seen climbing over floral arrangements and pulling out plants.
Several users criticised the incident on the social media platform X. “They are all educated and residents of NCR, but look at their civic sense. Disgraceful,” Suraj Kumar said in a post on X.
“I am beyond words now to describe these Indians,” Siddharth Shukla wrote on X.
In the viral video, people can be overheard saying, “They are ruining the decoration, these are all educated people and look at how they are behaving.”
HT could not independently verify the authenticity of the video.
Anand Mohan Singh, deputy director (horticulture), Noida Authority, said such incidents were not isolated to the last day. “It was happening almost every day. We would fix everything at night, and then people would damage it again the next day. What can we do about certain members of the public?”
Singh added that the massive footfall made strict monitoring challenging. “People need to understand that government property is also their property and should be respected as such,” he said.
The flower festival, held from February 19 to 22 at Shivalik Park in Sector 33A, attracted nearly 1.5 million visitors from across the National Capital Region, officials said.