Chittagong: Nurul Islam Fahad alias Marzan, one of the suspected masterminds of the recent militant attacks in the country, is actually a Chittagong University dropout.

Marzan, who was known as Fahad on the campus, was a 2nd year student of Arabic Department of the university under academic session of 2012-13, said some of his classmates who identified him after police released his photograph.

He, however, did not appear at the year final examination and remained missing since 2015, said CU Proctor Mohammad Ali Asgar Chowdhury.

Earlier on Monday, family members identified Marzan as Nurul Islam Marzan, hailing from Afuri village under Hemayetpur union of Sadar upazila in Pabna.

Marzan’s mother, Salma Khatun, had said his son had been missing for the last eight months.

The Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) on August 12 identified Marzan as one of the masterminds of the recent militant attacks in the country.

According to DMP Additional Commissioner and chief of the CTTC unit Monirul Islam, the name of Marzan surfaced during the investigation into the Gulshan Holey Artisan Bakery attack.

After interrogating some suspected militants both in Dhaka and North Bengal, they have confirmed that Marzan was staying in Kalyanpur from where he contacted and monitored the Gulshan attackers, he had said.

He said they got the photo of Marzan from a detained militant’s mobile phone and the photo was released through DMP mobile apps ‘Hello CT’.