New Delhi, Oct. 4 -- Forty-five days after Bangladesh became independent in December 1971, Zahir Raihan, one of the key figures of Bengali cinema from the region, went missing at the age of 36. He had gone looking for his brother, a writer, who had disappeared during the war. Raihan is suspected to have been abducted and killed, presumably by the Pakistan army.

That's the narrative that visual artist and writer Naeem Mohaiemen, 57, says he grew up hearing-even though that did not make sense: how could the Pakistan army operate in a newly independent Bangladesh, let alone murder a prominent figure like Raihan? It's only in the last 15 years or so that Mohaiemen, who's based in New York and Dhaka, started to learn about a missing can of fi...