File Photo. Asif Hassan—AFP
Official says investigation has been launched to identify victim
The beheaded body of a transgender person has been found in Peshawar, officials said on Sunday, the latest attack on the community in the country.
The decomposed body of a person aged about 25 had been dumped on farmland in the city’s low-income district of Tehkal. It was discovered late Saturday.
The body was not identified and was buried early Sunday after photos and fingerprints were taken, local police official Zahoor Ahmad told AFP. He said police had started investigations and were trying to identify the victim.
In 2009 Pakistan became one of the first countries in the world to legally recognize a third sex, allowing transgender people to obtain identity cards. Several have also run in elections.
Despite this 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. According to census data released last August Pakistan’s transgender community numbered just over 10,000 people. But past studies by non-profit groups and development organizations have put the size of the community in the hundreds of thousands.