PESHAWAR – Two men armed with daggers killed two transgender women at their home in conservative northwest Pakistan overnight before fleeing the scene, police said, a sign of increasing violence against trans people in the country.
The killings happened Sunday night in Mardan, a city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, local police chief Fahim Khan said. He said the motive behind the killings was unclear and officers are still investigating, and the victims had been buried at a local graveyard.
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Khan said that two suspects had also been arrested in connection with the killings, but he refused to share any further details. Khan also refused to confirm or deny whether the men were directly involved in the attack.
Transgender people are often subjected to harassment, abuse and attacks in Muslim-majority Pakistan. They are also among the victims of so-called honor killings carried out by relatives to punish perceived sexual transgressions.
However, Pakistan's parliament in 2018 adopted the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act to secure the fundamental rights of transgender Pakistanis, including their access to legal gender recognition. But many in the country have entrenched beliefs on gender and sexuality, and trans people are often considered outcasts. Some are forced into begging, dancing and even prostitution to earn money. They also live in fear of attacks.
Pakistani authorities have also issued identification cards to transgender people.
Farzana Jan, president of the Trans Action rights group in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said that another nine trans people have been killed in gun attacks in the province since January.
She said that none of the attackers involved in the previous cases had been brought to justice, mainly because prosecutors didn't pursue the cases seriously.
The transgender community has threated to protest if the attackers aren't arrested.
“We have given a three-day deadline to the police for arresting those behind the latest killings in Mardan,” Jan said. “We will stage rallies if the killers of two members of our community are not arrested."
There are no exact figures about the number of trans people in Pakistan, but Jan estimated that about 75,000 live in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Mardan is located about 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of Peshawar.