Another transgender person gunned down in Peshawar

Family accepts Zaman’s dead body on precondition that no transgender will attend her funeral

PESHAWAR: In yet another incident of violent crime against the already marginalised transgender community, a transgender person was brutally gunned down on Sunday in her own apartment in a commercial area of the Khyber-Pakhtunkwa’s (K-P) capital.

According to police, Akhtar Zaman alias Spogmay, 24, was killed at around 9:30 am in her flat, located on the fourth floor of a plaza at Peshawar’s Khyber Super Market.

SP Cantt Wasim Riaz told The Express Tribune that Zaman was shot 6 times from a close range. After the attack, she was shifted to the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) where she succumbed to her injuries.



 

“A 9 mm pistol was used in the attack and the accused identified as Wasiullah was seen running from the site of crime after the incident. Later, Zaman’s cook Imran also told police that Wasiullah was involved in the cold blooded murder,” he said.

The LRH spokesperson Asim Khan said Z received six bullets and was undergoing treatment at the hospital who later died of injuries.

Zaman’s body was later shifted to a local police station for registering an FIR. “Zaman was a resident of Quetta and was living in that flat on rent,” he added.

The motive behind the incident could not be immediately ascertained.

Controversy over accepting dead body

Zaman’s family, which lives close to the place where the transgender was murdered, at first refused to accept her dead body, saying she was no longer a family member.



However, the family later agreed to hold her funeral rites on the precondition that transgender persons would neither take part in her funeral nor visit them to offer condolences.

“The transgender community wanted to transport the body to the family. However, the family refused even to receive the coffin from the community members,” said Tamur Kamal, a social activist, who played a role in persuading the family to perform Zaman’s last rites.

“Around 54 transgender persons have been murdered in the K-P since 2015 while some 350 case of violence against transgender community have been registered in 2017 alone,” he added.

Last month, a transgender person was killed and dumped in Ashiqabad area by a jilted ‘lover’. Hajira’s body had been found slaughtered in a canal on October 21.