FRANKFURT: Two German police officers were shot dead on Monday after pulling over a car during a routine traffic stop, prompting police to launch a major manhunt.

The shooting happened at around 4:20am in the Kusel district of western Rhineland-Palatinate state during a routine patrol. A 24-year-old female police officer and her 29-year-old male colleague were killed.

The young woman was still in police training, according to Rhineland-Palatinate Interior Minister Roger Lewentz.

“We are urgently searching for the fugitive perpetrators,” Westpfalz regional police said in a statement.

“At least one of the suspects is armed,” they warned, urging residents not to pick up hitchhikers. The shooting occurred on a small country road surrounded by forests and fields, a regional police spokesman told Welt TV.

The two officers managed to report that shots had been fired but radio contact was lost shortly afterwards, he said.

Published in Dawn, February 1st, 2022