PESHAWAR — Unidentified gunmen shot dead a Christian priest and wounded another as the clerics drove home from church in Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar on Sunday, police said.

Two attackers on a motorcycle opened fire on the car on the city's ring-road, killing Pastor William Siraj instantly, officers added.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the shooting in a city where scores of people died in a twin suicide bombing outside a church in 2013.

Azad Marshall, the most senior bishop in the Church of Pakistan, condemned the attack and tweeted: "We demand justice and protection of Christians from the Government of Pakistan."

Pakistan's northwestern areas bordering Afghanistan have seen a rise in militant attacks on security forces in recent days, many of them claimed by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a group which associates itself with the Afghan Taliban.

TV footage showed emergency services removing Siraj from the car, and people carrying his body on a bed through the streets to a house. Mourners hugged each other and sobbed.

Pastor Siraj's colleague -- named by Bishop Azad as the Reverend Patrick Naeem -- was out of danger and being treated for his injuries, a spokesman for the city's Lady Reading hospital said.

Bishop Azad said both were clergy of the Diocese of Peshawar in the Church of Pakistan, which is a union of protestant churches including the Methodists and the Anglicans. — Agencies