COTABATO CITY, Philippines -- Unidentified gunmen shot dead a cashier of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and her husband late Wednesday afternoon, police said Thursday.

Senior Supt. Willie Dangane, city police chief, identified the victims as Bai Hija Mamaluba and her husband Jay Agon. The couple was declared dead at a hospital here.

Dangane said Mamaluba and her husband were heading home in their car when the assailants, riding tandem on a motorcycle, shot them at the corner of Sinsuat Avenue and Pansacala Street around 5:20 p.m. Wednesday.

Dangane said the victims, who were newlywed, had been receiving death threats from still unidentified persons before the incident.