The Bar Council annual general meeting yesterday passed a resolution to condemn police high-handedness in dealing with suspects and criminals.

It expressed the council's concern over the high number of people shot dead, which averages about 1.3 death a week over the past 10 years, as well as about o­ne death a week in police custody from 2000 to 2002.

The newly elected Bar Council president Khutubul Zaman Bukhari told a media conference after the meeting that the 2,078 lawyers who turned up at the AGM yesterday also called o­n the police to be more transparent about cases of the death of suspects while in their custody.