DHAKA: Unidentified gunmen on Tuesday late night opened fire on a passenger plane landing at Peshawar’s Bacha Khan airport, killing a woman and injuring two flight stewards on board, Dawn reported. 

The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) Boeing PK-756, with 196 passengers on board, was arriving from Riyadh when it was fired upon.  

The firing injured three people including two flight stewards and a woman, who later succumbed to her wounds.

The plane was hit by six bullets, police said, killing the woman and narrowly missing the captain. At least one bullet struck the plane's engine, they added.

The woman's daughter was sitting next to her when she was shot in the head, said PIA official Mohammad Kifayatullah Khan. 

“When I went inside the plane, I saw the woman lying on the seat and her nine-year-old daughter was crying, 'My mother is dead, my mother is dead',” said Khan. 

All the passengers were panicked. Some of them wanted to get out as soon as possible because they were afraid of fire inside the plane, he added.

The suspected attack follows a major Taliban assault on Karachi airport earlier this month that killed at least 32 people including all 10 attackers.

The security was put on a high alert around the area amidst Pakistani military's ongoing operation Zarb-i-Azb against militants in North Waziristan Agency, one of the country's seven semi-autonomous tribal agencies next to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of which Peshawar is the capital. 

BDST: 0933 HRS, JUN 25, 2014