Chinese woman shot dead in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD - Two people including one Chinese woman were shot dead by unknown gunmen in Pakistan's northwest city of Peshawar on Tuesday afternoon, said a senior police officer in the city.

Tahir Ayub, Senior Supterintendent, told local media that the passport found from the pocket of the killed woman showed she is a Chinese national and the other man killed in the incident was a local resident.

An official with the Chinese embassy in Pakistan has confirmed to Xinhua on condition of anonymity about the death of a Chinese woman in the firing incident.

According to the official, the Chinese woman was aged at 42. Other details about the woman are not known at this moment.

"We have sent people to Peshawar to handle the issue," said the official.

Local police said that it is not known yet why the two people were killed, but they believed that it was not a robbery-intended crime as one laptop and two bags of the killed woman were found intact in the car.        

Earlier on Tuesday afternoon, at about 5:00 pm local time, two unknown gunmen coming on a motorbike opened fire at two people sitting in a car at a market place in the downtown area of Peshawar.

The gunmen fled the scene after the shooting, they said.

Police cordoned off the area shortly after the firing was reported. The two victims were later rushed to Lady Reading Hospital, the largest government-run hospital in Peshawar.

Hospital sources said that both victims were shot in head and they were already dead on the way to the hospital.