“We have handed over a list of 49 absent students [18 of them drop outs] from first year to master’s to Registrar Prof Dr Kamrul Huda,” department Chairman Prof Dr Ismail Chowdhury told Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
The vice-chancellor, Prof Dr Iftekhar Uddin Chowdhury, asked for the list of absentee students of the department on Tuesday, after the identity of Gulshan attack operation commander Nurul Islam Marjan was revealed.
On Tuesday, the authorities also confiscated around 200 banned and controversial books – some of which are written by Jamaat-e-Islami founder Syed Abul A’la Maudoodi and its leader Delawar Hossain Sayedee – from the seminar libraries of Arabic and Islamic studies departments.
Marjan, a former Islami Chhatra Shibir activist and student of the Arabic department in 2012-2013 academic session, left the university during his second year final examinations on February 14 in 2014. His studentship was cancelled as he did not take re-admission.
However, Marjan was not on the list of six “missing” students provided by the university administration earlier on August 4, said police and university sources.
The university has been known as a stronghold of Shibir for the last three decades. The law enforcers since December last year have arrested six CU students for their alleged involvement with two outlawed groups – JMB and Hizb ut-Tahrir.
“The list is long as we have included the names of students who have remained absent for at least 10 days, as per the instruction of the Education Ministry.
“Around 15 to 18 of them mentioned on the list were dropped out,” Prof Ismail said.
“We have given the names along with their addresses and contact numbers. Now the administration will scrutinise the list and inform the law enforcement agencies about those students.
“As we made the list hurriedly, we could not contact the students,” he added.
According to investigators dealing with the July 1 Gulshan restaurant attack, Marjan is the youngest militant commander of the new faction of banned militant group Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), which is largely known as New JMB. He has close connections with the top leaders of the outfit.
JMB regional commander Raisul Islam Khan Rasel alias Fardin alias Noman had joined JMB and started to recruit members from Chittagong University after completing his graduation from the physics department in 2012.
In December, police arrested three students of the same department for JMB connection from Chittagong. Based on information they gave, the detectives recovered a sophisticated sniper rifle, ammunition, army uniforms and huge amount of bomb-making materials from a flat in Amanbazar area.
Thursday, June 04, 2026
