LAHORE: Peshawar police discovered the body of a transgender person in the Ashiqabad area near Warsack road on Saturday. According to police the body was three days old and bore signs of intense torture.
Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Sajjad Khan said that the police had not been able to identify the body so far, but had collected fingerprints and DNA samples.
The police had approached the local transgender community, hoping they could help identify the body. However, none of them could recognise the deceased. Laila Khan, the head of the local transgender association said that the murdered transgender was not from Peshawar.
The police have registered a report against unidentified persons.
According to the President of TransAction Organisation (TAO) – a human rights organisation in Peshawar, over 50 transgenders had been killed in 2015 and 2016.
Transgender persons continue to face persecution, discrimination and violence in the country. According to TAO there are at least half a million transgender persons in Pakistan, but the number could be as high as 2 million.
