ROTENBURG (Germany), Feb 5: Three men and three women were found shot dead in a Chinese restaurant in northern Germany in the early hours of Monday, police said.

Police said the six dead, who are all believed to be of Asian origin, had been tied up and left in different rooms of the restaurant in Sittensen, a town of 10,000 near the northern port of Hamburg.

Police spokesman Thomas Teuber said a member of the restaurant staff had suffered serious gunshot wounds and was fighting for his life in hospital.

The bodies were found by a 47-year-old man who came to fetch his wife from the Lin Yue restaurant just after midnight. She was among the victims.

Police have called on anyone who visited the restaurant on Sunday night to come forward.

The motive for the murder was unclear, police said.

There had never been any suspicious activity at the restaurant and there was no history of Chinese mafia activity in Lower Saxony, the state where it is situated.—AFP