KARACHI, Aug 4: Gun battles between police and ethnic militants erupted in several violent neighbourhoods of southern Karachi early today when police tried to disarm the militants.

A deputy superintendent of police Aslam Kiyani was shot in the chest when he stepped out of his police car to investigate several burning vehicles, police officials said. He died later in hospital.

The police operation to collect thousands of illegal weapons - many of them in the hands of ethnic militants - began yesterday. Two people, a father and his three-year-old daughter, died about midday yesterday when they left their home and were caught in the crossfire.

Police and paramilitary rangers in bullet-proof vests have taken up positions on rooftops and are racing through the labyrinth of alleyways trying to find militants.

The area in the violence-wracked eastern neighbourhoods of this teeming city of 14 million people has been cordoned off by police and rangers in armored personnel carriers and police vans.

Violence rocked Punjab's provincial capital Lahore as masked men shot and killed a prominent Sunni Muslim lawyer. Mian Arshid was on his way to the Lahore high court when two men on a motorcycle sprayed his car with bulletsPunjab police mounted a search for the two gunmen, suspected to be Shiite Muslim activists.

Violent clashes between extremist Shiite and Sunni Muslim groups have left almost 200 people dead since the start of the year. Police has launched a crackdown against extremist groups, arresting hundreds of activists with both sects.

Arshid was not considered a Sunni activist, but he was the lawyer for several prominent Sunni Muslim leaders, police said. At least ten lawyers have been killed in the recent religious violence in Punjab province.

Most of Pakistan's 140 million people are Sunni Muslims who live in peace alongside the nation's minority Shiite community.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.