PESHAWAR: Gunmen shot dead two Pakistani policemen on Monday, the second double shooting of officers in two days, police said.

Taseer Khan, 30, and Derwaish Khan, 43, who were brothers, were ambushed as they were driving to work on a motorcycle in the Charsadda district of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, police said. They died instantly.

“They had no personal enmity. Both brothers were in uniform and were coming on duty. They died on the spot,” Nisar Khan Marwat, Charsadda district police chief, told AFP.

The officer said the attackers fled the scene after the ambush.

Gunmen similarly killed two policemen on Saturday in Hayatabad, on the outskirts of Peshawar and next to Khyber district, part of Pakistan's tribal belt.

Pakistani intelligence officials blamed the attack on the Taliban.

Security has been stepped up across Pakistan and in the country’s northwest in particular, to prevent attacks marring Muharram, the first month of the new Islamic year.