PESHAWAR: At least four people were killed in an attack by unknown assailants in northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa's Hangu district.

Unidentified gunmen attacked a police party on Monday near the Qazi Pump area.

Station House Officer (SHO) Khanullah confirmed the death of three cops and a 15-year-old boy. District police chief Anwar Saeed Kundi said, “At least four militants riding a car stopped at a police check post and three of them opened fire killing three policemen and a passer-by.”

Security personnel were immediately sent to the site as a search operation was launched.

Hangu, racked by sectarian violence, had been on the frontline of a seven-year-long Taliban insurgency borders the semi-autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).

It also borders the northwestern tribal region of Orakzai, one of Pakistan's seven lawless districts on the Afghan border considered to be the hub of Taliban and Al Qaeda-linked militants.