Beheaded body of transgender person found in northwest Pakistan

The body of the brutally tortured transgender person was recovered from Ashiqabad area near Warsak Road in Peshawar on Saturday.

A beheaded body of a transgender person has been found in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, the latest attack on the community in the conservative country. The body of the brutally tortured transgender person was recovered from Ashiqabad area near Warsak Road in Peshawar yesterday, Dawn reported.

The body, police claimed, was three days old and bore signs of torture. Senior Superintendent of Police Sajjad Khan said that the police have not been able to identify the body so far, though fingerprints and DNA samples have been collected.

The police had asked the local transgender community if they could identify the body, however, none of them was able to recognise the deceased, the official said. The chief of transgender association, Laila Khan, said that the slain pwerson was not from Peshawar, the report said.

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A case has been registered by the police against unidentified persons. Pakistan became one of the first countries in the world to legally recognise a third sex in 2009, allowing transgender people to obtain identity cards.

In August, armed men opened fire on a group of transgender people, killing one, in the port city of Karachi. More than 50 transgenders were killed in 2015 and 2016, according to TransAction President Farzana — a rights organisation in Peshawar.

The status of the transgender community, also known as khawajasiras, is opaque in the country, to say the least. They number at least half a million in the country, and according to several studies — up to two million, claims TransAction.