The Allahabad High Court has observed that forwarding a WhatsApp message to multiple people, alleging that members of a particular community are being targeted, would prima facie amount to promoting enmity, hatred, and ill-will between different religious groups.

A bench of Justices J J Munir and Pramod Kumar Srivastava made the observation while refusing to quash an FIR lodged against petitioner Afaq Ahmad , who had allegedly circulated an inflammatory WhatsApp message.

Ahmad had forwarded a message to several individuals suggesting that his brother was falsely implicated in a criminal case because he belonged to a particular community. The FIR was registered under relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) .

Ahmad filed a writ petition under Article 226 of the Cons

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