Pabna: Police have got personal details of Marzan, one of the suspects who were involved in the attack on Holy Artisan Bakery restaurant at Gulshan in Dhaka on 1 July.

Marzan’s full name is Nurul Islam. He is from Afuria under Hemayetpur union in Pabna Sadar. Nazim Uddin and Salma Khatun are his parents. Marzan is the fourth among his siblings, said police.

‘A police team has visited his village home and gathered adequate information to confirm his identity. We could not inform journalists prior to the visit as we had limitation. It was not broadly discussed as the Counter Terrorism Intelligence Department of police has been investigating the issue,’ told Pabna police superintendent Alamgir Kabir to NTV at about 8:45pm on Monday.

Nazim Uddin said he has five sons and five daughters. Marzan is the fourth among them. He completed his primary and secondary education in local schools. Later he finished his higher secondary education at Pabna Alia Madrasa. After this, he taught students at a seminar attached to Banshbazar Mosque in Pabna for several months. He got admission into Chittagong University Arabic department in 2014.

He married one of his maternal cousins from Kalikapur in Ishwardi about a year ago. He, however, went missing eight months ago. Family do not know his whereabouts, said his father. 

He also added that hearing about Marzan’s involvement in terrorist activities, his mother, Salma Khatun, has had become ill. She was admitted into Pabna Medical College Hospital on Monday night.

The father said, ‘We don’t want to shoulder the responsibility of my son’s criminal activities.’

Marzan’s mother, Salma Khatun, on Monday said his son, a second year student of the Arabic Department of Chittagong University, had been missing for the last eight months, reports UNB.

Father picked up:

Meanwhile, police reportedly picked up his father, Nazim Uddin, from his residence on Monday night.

Local people claimed that a team of plainclothes picked Nazim up at about 8:00pm.

However, district police chief Alamgir Kabir denied any such arrest, saying they had not received any official order to confirm the identity of Marzan.

Mastermind Marzan

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

According to DMP additional commissioner Monirul Islam, also the chief of the CTTC unit, the name of Marzan surfaced during the investigation into the Gulshan Holey Artisan Bakery attack.

After interrogating some suspected Islamist 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’.