Jakarta – Gunmen shot dead two policemen in the troubled Indonesian province of Aceh on Tuesday while another was killed the previous day, reports said.

A group of unidentified men shot the two policemen, both first sergeants, as they were riding a motorcycle in Tiro, Pidie district around 9am, Aceh police spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Amrin Karim was quoted by the Antara news agency as saying.

"The likelihood is that the two police members were shot from close range and it is believed that the two victims died on the spot," Karim said.

The two were on their way home after night duty at the Tiro police post. They were shot just five kilometres from the post. Karim said security forces were searching the area for the attackers.

He said that on Monday, another policeman, a second sergeant, was also shot dead by gunmen in Lhoksukon in the neighbouring district of North Aceh.

The victim was killed by two people on a passing motorcycle after he had brought his pregnant wife to a primary school where she was teaching, he added.

The two incidents were the latest to hit the troubled province of Aceh where the Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh) movement has been fighting for a free Islamic state since the mid 1970s.

Pidie and North Aceh, along with East Aceh, are the three districts in Aceh where most of the violence between separatists and Indonesian soldiers and police have taken place.

The districts had borne the brunt of military violence during a harsh decade of anti-rebel operations there that was only ended last year. More than 260 people have been killed in Aceh since May.