Shooting Kills 3 Transgender Women in Pakistan's Largest City

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — Gunmen shot and killed three transgender women on the outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, before fleeing the scene, police said Monday, underscoring the dangers faced by the community across the country.

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.