Morgue refuses to keep transgender's body as its 'freezers will get dirty'

Transgender person was found murdered in the Darmangi area of Peshawar

PESHAWAR: The management of the Khyber Medical College (KMC) morgue in Peshawar has refused to keep the body of a transgender person who was found murdered in the Darmangi area on Saturday.

"They [management] have told us that the body is too decomposed and it would make their freezers dirty," transgender rights activist Qamar Naseem told The Express Tribune.

"Not only that, the government contractor has also refused to bury the body," he added.

"It's extremely shameful the way a human's body is being treated."



The activist said the body was now being handed over to the Edhi Foundation for burial.

"We had asked the morgue's management to keep the body for just one night and they even refused to do that," Naseem maintained.

The morgue at the KMC is the only such facility in the entire province.

The body of Arif alias Wara was found in the Ashiqabad area earlier in the day.

A police official told The Express Tribune that there were torture marks on the body and the throat was slit. The body was sent to the KMC for an autopsy.

Tamure Kamal, a rights activist, hit out at the police and government for their failure to provide protection to the transgender community.



“This is the 53rd transgender person killed since 2015 and we have around 300 cases of violence against transgender persons on record including rape, gang rape, kidnapping and torture,” he said, adding that the violence against transgender people was far from over and it was because the police was not taking the issue seriously.