(Getty)

A transgender woman has been shot dead in the Pakistani city of Peshawar.

The woman was shot and killed by unidentified men in the city’s Cantonment area on Sunday.

Police said that a number of armed assailants shot at the woman in the Khyber supermarket, reports DawnNews.

Speaking to local news outlets, police officers said the woman was struck by three bullets.

She was later transferred to the Lady Reading Hospital for treatment.

A spokesperson for the hospital said the woman was brought in in critical condition.

“After receiving her, doctors shifted the injured to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and provided treatment,” added the spokesperson.

The woman later died of her injuries in the intensive care unit.

Members of the local transgender community have reached out to call for the arrest of the assailants.

Police have said they have no information regarding the suspects, but that an operation has been launched to find them.

An unconfirmed report suggests that that one of the suspects may have been a friend of the victim.

Last month, a trans woman was tortured and beheaded in Pakistan.

Authorities were unable to identify the corpse, which was found three days after her death.

Pakistan contains more than 10,400 trans people according to census data from August, though activists estimate that there could be hundreds of thousands more in the country.

Pakistan has taken several steps towards equality for trans people.

In 2009, the country became one of the first in the world to legally recognise a third gender when they handed out gender-neutral identity cards.

Earlier in October, a Pakistani university offered free education to trans students.

And in August, the government introduced a bill which aimed to protect trans people.

But despite these moves, violence and sexual attacks on trans people are still common in the Muslim country.

Last month, two transgender women were allegedly gang-raped in their own home.

Two other trans women were left brutally beaten when five men broke into the house rented by a group of trans women in the capital, Karachi.

And just a few weeks earlier, a gang of armed men opened fire on a group of trans people.

One trans person was killed in the attack, which was also committed in the capital.