Bangladesh’s army said on Thursday it had foiled a coup attempt to topple the government of Prime Minister Hasina Wajed by retired and serving officers in a campaign to introduce Shariah law in the country.
The army said one of the coup masterminds, Maj. Ziaul Haque remained a fugitive. The five arrested in the capital Dhaka are allegedly members of Hizbut Tahrir group, said Mohammad Sohel, director for legal and media of the Rapid Action Battalion.
Bangladesh has a history of coups, with army generals running the South Asian nation for 15 years until the end of 1990.
Hasina took power in early 2009 and has since faced threats from Islamist and other radical groups.
A revolt in the country’s paramilitary border guards in February 2009 started at the guard headquarters in Dhaka and spread to a dozen other cities, killing more than 70 people, including 51 army officers.
The revolt was quelled after two days but the country has since been shadowed by fears of further uprisings.
The failed coup plot has raised questions over the level of Islamist penetration in the military, analysts say.
"I am worried because radical, extremist views within a disciplined and secular force is unexpected," said Delwar Hossain, a professor of Dhaka University, who teaches security issues and international relations.
"It can have profound implications," Hossain said.
Bangladesh has had a history of political violence, coups and counter-coups since gaining independence in 1971.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country's first president and father of the current prime minister, Hasina Wajed, was assassinated during his overthrow by the army in 1975.
Although the military regimes appeased Islamists, they always took care not to undermine the army's secular status.
Some observers queried how serious the latest coup plot actually was, and suggested the army's focus on it's "religious" nature was meant as a warning to Islamist factions within the military.
"It looks like it may not have been a coup, but rather a dissension or disorder, which the army has been struggling to overcome in its evolution as a disciplined force," said Ataur Rahman, a senior researcher at the National University of Singapore and an expert on the Bangladesh military.
"By talking quite openly about a failed coup... the military wants to send a clear message that it'll not tolerate any drift towards religious extremism," Rahman said.
