Retired army officers lieutenant colonel Debashish Kumar Barua and lieutenant Gulshan Ara have been remanded for four days in a sedition case in Dhaka.
The case also involves alleged violations of the Anti-Terrorism Act and the Cyber Security Act.
Metropolitan Magistrate Didarul Alam passed the order on Monday after investigators sought seven days of remand, said SI Saiful Islam of the police prosecution department.
The case investigator, DB Cyber and Special Crime (South) division Inspector Sheikh Bashir Ahmed, alleged that the pair used WhatsApp groups named “Bangladesh Awami League Supporters Alpha” and “BBM Transparency” to raise funds and produce digital content inciting violence.
The remand petition also alleged that they maintained links with former army chief Aziz Ahmed and fugitive leaders of the banned Awami League through platforms named “Unity Care” and “Public Parliament”, with the aim of rehabilitating the party and plotting crimes against the state.
They were also accused of using a Facebook page to spread content intended to incite violence and destabilise the country.
The application alleged that Gulshan visited Ganabhaban on Nov 27, 2018, ahead of the parliamentary election, with more than 150 retired army officers to express their allegiance to then prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
It also accused her of forming a committee called “Sena Parishad” with 101 associates to spread hostility and provoke unrest.
During the hearing, Barua’s lawyer Abdullah Al Mansur Ripon argued that no allegation showed his client had directly threatened the country’s sovereignty or sought to destabilise it.
He sought cancellation of the remand and bail.
Gulshan’s lawyer Mashiur Rahman said she was a retired officer with a clean record who now ran a business.
He argued that keeping in touch with former army colleagues and creating Facebook content were not crimes in themselves.
State prosecutor Harun-or-Rashid opposed bail, alleging that the accused had links with Aziz, a former home minister and foreign intelligence operatives, and had shared sensitive information.
He said remand was necessary to identify and arrest others involved in the alleged conspiracy.
Detectives arrested the pair at two locations in Dhaka on Sunday night. Inspector Ali Akbar of the DB Pallabi zonal team subsequently filed the case.