HispanicBusiness

Gunmen attacked and killed a prominent social worker in Pakistan's largest city of Karachi, police said Thursday, sparking condemnation by the rights activists.

Parveen Rehman was shot dead Wednesday night when she was on her way home, said local police officer Ghaffar Shah.

"She succumbed to injuries before reaching a hospital," Shah told

dpa by phone.

Rehman was heading the Orangi Pilot Project, a non-governmental group working since 1980 on sanitation, health and micro-financing projects in the city's low-income settlements.

Privately-run Human Rights Commission of Pakistan condemned the killing, saying Rehman had worked for 30 years to assist the vulnerable groups, ignoring all odds and hazards.

"Her assassination is a cruel blow to the country's civil society and a great loss to the nation," the commission's chief Zohra Yusuf said.

The German Catholic development aid group Misereor, with which Rehman had worked, said it was appalled by her murder.

Karachi, a city of about 18 million people, has long been in the grip of ethnic political and sectarian violence.