Zahir Raihan's 91st birth anniv

A renowned filmmaker, writer and journalist Zahir Raihan was born on August 19, 1935, in Majupur village of Sonagazi, Feni.

He started his education from Calcutta Alia Madrasa and came to Dhaka with his family after the Partition in 1947. He got his master's degree in Bengali from the University of Dhaka in 1958 and thereafter dedicated himself to writing and journalism.

Raihan began his journalistic career with Juger Alo and then worked with different newspapers and periodicals. He published his first collection of stories called Surjagrahan in 1955. Some of his famous novels are Shesh Bikeler Meye, Arek Falgun and Hazar Bochhor Dhore, for which he won the Adamjee Literary Award in 1964.

Raihan joined films as an assistant on Jago Hua Savera in 1957 and directed his first movie named Kokhono Asheni in 1961. Later, he directed movies like Sangam, Pakistan’s first Urdu language color film, and Bahana, its first cinemascope film.

His revolutionary film Jibon Theke Neya portrayed the spirit of the 1952 Language Movement. In the Liberation War, his documentary Stop Genocide was an international eye-opener on the atrocities committed during the war and the revenue from the screenings of which were donated to the freedom fighters' cause.


Upon coming back to Dhaka after the liberation of Bangladesh, Raihan started looking into the massacre of intellectuals and decided to unmask those involved in the murders.

On January 30, 1972, he went to Mirpur searching for his missing brother, Shahidullah Kaiser. According to the reports, Raihan died in an attack near the Kalapani water tank in Mirpur. No trace of his body was found.

His family thinks that his body was secretly taken away, while veteran journalist Nirmal Sen said that Raihan was killed by some Mujib Bahini members.