Speakers at a function in city Friday demanded the caretaker government start trial of the war criminals of 1971 Liberation War, reports UNB.

"Bangladesh can never be a civilized country until the war criminals are tried for their misdeeds," said Gen (retd) Harun-or-Rashid (Bir Pratik).

He was addressing the launching ceremony of a book, ''Ekti Surya Uther Galpa'' (Story of rising of a sun) by Rezaul Hasan, a Bangladeshi expatriate living in Canada, at the War Museum in the afternoon.

Acting chairman of Dhaka University''s Journalism Department Prof Dr AAMS Arefin Siddique and noted writer Mafidul Haq, among others, addressed the function.

Prof Arein said the Bengali nation would never forget the genocide perpetrated by Pakistani occupation forces and their collaborators- Razakars, Al-badr and Al-Shams-in 1971.

"The killers and rapists cannot go unpunished. They must be put on trial," Prof Arefin said. He demanded the government include books on the liberation into national curricula so that the evil forces cannot distort the history