The Bombay High Court on Tuesday refused to quash a first information report against a Pune woman for allegedly reacting with a laughing emoji to a message praising Operation Sindoor in her housing society’s WhatsApp group, Bar and Bench reported.

A bench of Justices AS Gadkari and Rajesh Patil dismissed the plea filed by the woman, Farah Deeba, observing that there was a prima facie case against her actions, which also included allegedly posting a WhatsApp status that was deemed offensive to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Indian flag.

The bench said that her actions would attract provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to acts endangering the sovereignty, integrity and unity of India as well as promoting enmity between groups, Live Law reported.

It also noted the woman’s statement to the complainant that both her paternal and maternal families were from Pakistan due to which she described India as “makkar”, or deceitful.

This showed the woman’s “mens rea” or guilty mind, Live Law quoted the bench as saying.

The FIR was registered against Deeba based on a complaint filed by another resident of her society. Her posts had reportedly sparked unrest in the area, with residents staging a protest and demanding police action against the woman, Bar and Bench reported.

The case was filed under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to acts endangering sovereignty and integrity, promoting enmity between different groups, imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration, intentional insult to provoke breach of peace and statements conducing to public mischief.

Seeking a dismissal of the FIR against her, Deeba had submitted in her petition that she had not been in a stable mental condition when she made the posts.

Her counsel said she had apologised and deleted the messages once she realised that they were not well received, Bar and Bench reported. The counsel added that she had already suffered for her actions professionally, having been terminated from her teaching job.

The court rejected these arguments.

“The intention of the petitioner becomes an essential ingredient to be judged with the kind of language she has used for India,” Bar and Bench quoted the court as saying. “More particularly when the whole country was feeling proud of our Army. She could have probably avoided reacting with a laughing emoji.”

The court also observed that as a prudent and educated person, she should have considered the repercussions before posting such content.

The bench added: “In such a situation, she subsequently adopting a defence that, she has not realised those messages were controversial and posted them due to her deranged mental condition will not be helpful to her.”

Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated on May 7 when the Indian military carried out strikes – codenamed Operation Sindoor – on what it claimed were terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The strikes were in response to the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, which killed 26 persons on April 22.

The Pakistan Army retaliated to Indian strikes by repeatedly shelling Indian villages along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. At least 22 Indian civilians and eight defence personnel were killed in the shelling.

The sides on May 10 reached an “understanding” to halt firing following the four-day conflict.