KARACHI: More than 100 policemen backed by Rangers personnel on Thursday stormed into strife-plagued Shanti Nagar, a low-income neighbourhood along Stadium Road near Dalmia that has emerged as an epicentre of gang warfare after Lyari, but returned without arresting any wanted suspect.

The search operation, initiated by the police, lasted for hours and received a brief resistance from the suspects inside the hideouts set up in the locality. However, the police said that before the law-enforcers could track down the suspects, they had fled the area.

“We have, however, got access to the locality and set up four pickets, which will be manned by armed policemen round the clock,” said SSP Javed Mehar of Gulshan-i-Iqbal Town. “This exercise doesn’t end here. It will continue and we plan to remove all crime dens in the locality. We have picked up three suspects and they are being interrogated.”

He deplored that whenever the police moved against suspects in Shanti Nagar, fast becoming a centre of criminal and drug peddler gangs like Lyari, area residents helped them escape.

“But we have marked a few hideouts and removed some in the recent operations,” said SSP Mehar. “Even on Thursday we raided an abandoned house where we found a shotgun with more than 100 live rounds, an MP5 rifle with 150 rounds and nearly half a dozen TT pistols. A hand grenade was also seized from the house.”

He said that more police pickets would be set up in the locality to reassure the area residents that they were safe and to keep gangsters away.

“As the police force stormed into the locality some armed men fired a few gunshots at the law-enforcers probably to show that the criminals had a larger presence than expected. But we returned fire and put an end to resistance,” he said. “More such operations will be carried out in the days to come as it has been decided in principle that peace will be established in Shanti Nagar at all costs.”

Courtesy by dawn.com