PESHAWAR: A Chinese woman was shot dead with a male companion on Tuesday in Peshawar, which borders the tribal belt stronghold of Taliban and al Qaeda-linked militants, police said.

They were killed by gunmen on motorbikes while walking in the Kohati bazaar in the historic centre of the northwestern city, but the motive of the shooting was not immediately clear, police official Tahir Ayub told AFP.

“Those who were killed are one man carrying a Pakistani ID card and one woman carrying a Chinese passport,” Ayub told AFP.

They were walking in the Kohati Bazaar when gunmen on motorbikes shot them and fled, he said.

Police found a Chinese passport with a Pakistani tourist visa inside, a laptop, digital camera and biscuits in the woman's bag, Ayub said.

Police said initially that two foreigners had been killed.

It was the fifth shooting or bomb attack in Pakistan's northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since Thursday, raising fears that violence is again on the rise following a relative decline in unrest in recent months.

Peshawar is a city of 2.5 million close to the Afghan border and has long been on the frontline of violence blamed on a five-year Taliban insurgency led by militants opposed to the government's alliance with the United States.