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The victims’ bodies were found on a roadside Sunday. All three
were shot at close range and the victims were later buried in a
local graveyard, senior police official Javed Abro said.
The motive was not immediately clear and a hunt was underway to
trace and arrest the killers, Abro said.
Sindh Province Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, condemned the
killings and ordered a probe.
“Transgenders are an oppressed section of society,” he said,
vowing that those behind the attack would be arrested.
Members of the transgender community staged a protest Sunday
outside Karachi’s state-run Jinnah Hospital, where the bodies
were taken for autopsy. They warned of nationwide demonstrations
if the killers were not brought to justice.
Transgender rights activist Bindiya Rana told The Associated
Press on Monday that violence against the community “is not new
and it is deeply embedded in our society.”
“If the police fail to identify the killers, we will announce a
countrywide protest,” she said.
The Gender Interactive Alliance, a local rights group,
identified the victims as Karachi residents who earned their
livelihood by begging. The group also pointed to a separate
knife attack two days earlier that critically wounded another
transgender woman at Karachi’s Sea View Beach.
“These back-to-back tragedies show that the community is being
systematically targeted. This is not just about individual
killings, it is an attempt to terrorize and silence an entire
community,” the alliance said, demanding immediate arrests, a
dedicated protection unit for transgender persons and greater
solidarity from civil society.
Transgender people in Pakistan, a Muslim-majority nation, often
are subjected to abuse. They also are among the victims of
so-called honor killings carried out by relatives to punish
perceived sexual transgressions.
Pakistan’s Supreme Court has recognized transgender people as a
third gender, which in theory affords them legal protection, but
discrimination remains rampant. Pakistan's parliament in 2018
passed a law to secure fundamental rights for transgender
people, including legal gender recognition, yet activists say
social stigma and violence persist.
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