ISLAMABAD: One police officer was killed and two others were wounded when unidentified gunmen opened fire on a checkpoint in the city here on Friday, a police spokesman said.

The incident happened on the edge of the capital when police tried to stop two men on a motorcycle for a routine search.

“All of a sudden the motorcycle riders opened fire on them, one police head-constable has been martyred,” Muhammad Zia Ul Qamar, a spokesman for Islamabad police, told AFP.

Qamar said another policeman and a paramilitary soldier were wounded.

Police said they had launched a search operation to arrest the gunmen who fled the scene after the shooting.