Peshawar, PAKISTAN -- Unidentified gunmen shot dead a women's rights activist and her daughter in deeply conservative northwestern Pakistan, police said on Tuesday.
AFP

Zubeda Begum, 40, was killed on the spot late on July 1 while her 17-year-old daughter Shumyla died in hospital on Monday following the attack in the town of Dir, 250 kilometers (156 miles) northeast of Peshawar.

Begum was working for private women's rights group the Aurat Foundation. Aurat means woman in Urdu, Pakistan's official language.

"We have launched a search for the suspects and raided a few places, but so far no arrests have been made," said Dir's deputy superintendent of police Hafeez-ur-Rehman.

The policeman said that the victim had never reported any threats and that the motive was more likely to be linked to a family feud, although that had not been confirmed.

Religious groups oppose the presence of nongovernmental organizations and foreign aid workers in the area and four years ago some agencies removed their staff following protests by locals.

In April 2003 rocket attacks gutted the offices of the European Union-funded Dir-Kohistan Development Project and other groups, but caused no casualties.