Rani pleads for her safety but police refuses to take act against the culprit

Our Correspondent

The worsening plight of KP transgender community

President of Trans Action Alliance Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (TAA) Farzana Ilyas has made a special plea to the higher authorities in the KP government to provide protection to transgender persons with a particular reference to Rani whose life is being threatened by a man.

The prejudice and abuse against the transgender community goes on unabated in the KP province.

Farzana Ilyas speaking to the media press conference at the Mardan press club on 10th of March, appealed to the government to provide protection to the transgender persons with an immediate decision to categorize transgender persons as ‘humans’ deserving of the same human rights and protection as other members of society.

In her press conference, Ferzana Ilyas said it is not acceptable that more than 90 transgender persons have been killed in the KP since 2015 in 1,700 different incidents. Just in the last four to five years, 1, 500 transgender persons have been raped. This shows unabated prejudice and abuse of the transgender community throughout the Province.

Relating a recent incident involving a transgender person named Rani, the TAA president informed the conference that a few days ago Rani along with other friends went to Gujjar Ghari to attend a wedding ceremony. He had taken permission from the police officials deployed at the Saddar PS.

Over 90 transgender persons killed in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province since 2015 in 1700 different incidents.

During the function a person identified as Babar appeared along with some other unidentified gunmen and allegedly started firing at Rani. Following the incident, Rani went to the concerning police station to register the FIR. She claims that the police closed the door on her and refused to register the FIR.

Following the police refusal to register the FIR, a protest rally was held outside the district police office. The station house officer (SHO) at the City police station, Ashiq Hussain, provided the assurance to register the FIR and also to arrest the accused.

However, the registered FIR omitted the recovery of the weapon from the attacker. Based on this weak FIR, the court granted bail to the suspected man. Now that he is on bail and issuing threats to Rani.

The treatment of the transgender community is doing an untold damage to the reputation, image of the Province and the country, both at home and in the international circles.

When Rani went back to the concerning police officer with a complaint of threats she was dismissed rudely by the SHO and Muharrar.

Farzana added that such types of incidents have become a common practice with the transgender community in KP and their scale and frequency are damaging the image of the province and country. Therefore, urgent action is required to prevent such abuse.