File Photo. Rizwan Tabassum—AFP
Police say victim was initially pelted with eggs before being shot dead
Unknown gunmen killed a transgender person in Karachi on Wednesday, police said, in the latest attack to target the marginalized community.
The attackers initially threw eggs from a moving car at the victim and her friend before returning to the scene and firing gunshots at the pair. “The bullet hit the jaw [of the victim] who died of that shot,” said senior police officer Saqib Ismail.
In 2009, Pakistan became one of the first countries in the world to legally recognize a third sex, allowing transgenders to obtain identity cards, while several have also run in elections. Despite these strides, many transgender Pakistanis face rampant discrimination and are forced to live as pariahs, often reduced to begging or prostitution and subjected to extortion and violence.
Modern-day Pakistani transgender people claim to be cultural heirs of the eunuchs who thrived at the courts of the Mughal emperors that ruled the Indian subcontinent for two centuries until the British arrived in the 19th century and banned them.