KARACHI, Feb 20: The Rangers carried out a search operation in a violence-hit locality of New Karachi Town on Sunday and picked up several suspects, provoking residents to take to the streets against the crackdown.

The law and order situation in the Godhra area has been bad since Friday, when the prayer leader of a local mosque was gunned down by unknown assailants.

Admitting that the law and order situation was worsening in the area, New Karachi SP Karamullah Samoo said that the situation in Godhra Camp was very volatile.

As the soyem of the slain prayer leader was held in Sector G-11, Godhra inside a mosque, armed men belonging to rival groups traded fire, the police said, adding that two people — Mohammed Mushtaq and Mohammed Nasir — were wounded and rushed to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for treatment.

Tension gripped the locality after the incident and angry people took to the streets and staged violent protests and shouted slogans against the police.

The protesters also resorted to firing into the air and threw stones at law-enforcement agencies’ vehicles, smashing the windscreens of some police vans.

Shops and other commercial activities remained suspended in the locality and the protesters burnt tyres on roads, forcing the residents to stay indoors.

A police van also came under attack during the operation in the Godhra area, but no one was injured in the incident.

The Rangers launched the operation in the evening, cordoned off the area and started a house-to-houkse search to seize weapons and to arrest miscreants.

Confirming that a search operation was being carried out by the Rangers in the affected locality, SP Samoo said that the police were not taking part in the operation. “They (the residents) react violently against the police,” the SP said.

Till the filing of this report, the search operation was continuing and the Rangers had detained some six persons.