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Mohsin, 31, returned home on a mid-March night this year along with his four companions only to find his 28-year-old friend, Sibtain, standing outside, holding a gun. He started shooting at them as soon as he saw them. When the local police arrived at the crime scene a little later, Sibtain had already fled and Mohsin and his companions were all lying injured on the ground.

They belong to the transgender community in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa&rsquo;s northeastern city of Mansehra. Among them, Azeem, 30, and Natasha, 31, suffered minor injuries so they went home after receiving first-aid from Mansehra&rsquo;s King Abdullah Teaching Hospital.

Mohsin&#39;s life, however, was in danger because a bullet was stuck in his leg so, after providing him with first aid, local doctors shifted him to Ayub Medical Complex (a better-equipped government hospital in Abbottabad) for further treatment. He could not be treated properly there either, he says, so he had to approach a private hospital to have the bullet removed.

Their fourth companion, Bilal, 32, was shot in the stomach and had to be shifted to Lahore for better treatment. Umair, the fifth injured person, however, moved to his home without getting any treatment. A few days later, his condition deteriorated to such an extent that he had to be hospitalized immediately but his treatment proved unsuccessful and he died soon after.

Like other local transgenders, he fed his siblings by begging, singing and dancing. The fear of not being able to recover and take care of his family was constantly worrying him, he said before he passed away. He, therefore, demanded from the government that the person who fired at him be punished strictly as per law.&nbsp;

&ldquo;I had no enmity with Sibtain,&rdquo; Mohsin says as he recalls the entire incident. &ldquo;He was my close friend and would often stay overnight at my residence,&rdquo; he says. Shortly before the shooting, he says, the two even had a brief conversation over the phone in which Sibtain did not express any displeasure or resentment.

Sibtain also admitted to the police after his arrest that he had, indeed. been friends with Mohsin. He, however, also told them that some disagreements had arisen between the two before the shooting, leading to an altercation. This altercation then resulted in the murderous attack, he is reported to have said.

Even though the police has filed a case of attempted murder against Sibtain and sent it to a court, Mohsin is not very optimistic that he will be actually convicted for his crime. He narrates how there have been multiple cases of assault and violence against transgender people in Mansehra in which the police would immediately arrest and detain the culprits but they would ultimately escape punishment due to the lack of an effective legal and judicial action.

<h2>Subhead</h2>

According to a Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police report, 91 transgender persons have been murdered and more than 2000 have been assaulted and injured in various parts of the province since 2015. Peshawar has registered the highest number of transgender murder cases and Swat has the second highest number of them. Hazara division&rsquo;s two districts, Mansehra and Abbottabad, are third and fourth on this list.

Nadira Khan, the head of Hazara Transgender Association, a non-government organization working in this division, believes that this report still does not show the complete picture of the violence faced by the local transgender community. &ldquo;In reality, many such incidents are neither recorded nor reported by news outlets due to various social reasons,&rdquo; she says.

Jameel Akhter, assistant superintendent of police in Mansehra, partially blames the transgender people themselves for these violent crimes. &ldquo;The police has advised this community on numerous occasions to install close circuit television cameras at their residences (commonly known as dera), not let any stranger enter their deras past 9 pm, wear appropriate clothes in public places, keep a copy of the Computerized National Identity Card (CNIC) of the host of any event they attend and not let unrelated people in the car while travelling,&rdquo; he says but alleges that transgender people never follow these guidelines.

Qamar Naseem, national coordinator of Blue Veins (a non-government organization working for trans rights), disagrees. These precautionary measures can only be effective against attackers who are strangers, he says, but, out of the above-mentioned 91 murders that have taken place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during the past seven years, 72 involved killers who were friends and acquaintances of the victims&quot;.

For instance, on March 17th, 2022, a transgender named Chand was shot dead in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa&rsquo;s central district of Mardan. Honey, one of his transgender friends, was also injured in the attack. Local police say the attacker was actually Honey&#39;s friend, who opened fire on her over her alleged infidelity.

Just a day later, a person named Sanaullah shot dead a transgender named Mano in a settlement named Jangi in Peshawar. Arzoo Khan, president of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Transgender Association, says Mano had asked Sanaullah to return 800,000 rupees she had lent him for setting up his own business. This demand led to her murder.

<h2>Failures in protection</h2>

Tanveer Ahmed, a Mansehra-based lawyer, provides free legal aid to various victims of violence. About a year ago, he says, a special court was set up in every district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with the sole purpose to hear cases of women, children and transgender victims of violence and punish the guilty. There are 200 cases pending in such a court in Mansehra district but so far it has not punished even a single accused, he says.

In cases involving transgender persons, the aggrieved party often reaches an out-of-court settlement with the other party after only a few court hearings. This is because members of the transgender community, according to him, &quot;avoid going to police stations and courts due to the fear of being mocked as well as because of the financial implications&rdquo;.

Akhter, the police officer, has a different perspective. Transgender people, according to him, do not cooperate with police in cases of violence against them. They are also not interested in pursuing their cases in court due to which their attackers remain unpunished, he says.&nbsp;

Naseem of Blue Veins, however, is of the opinion that one of the main reasons for this reluctance is that the provincial policies protecting transgender community are both inactive and ineffective. Although the provincial cabinet has approved a draft law to protect the members of the community, the provincial assembly has not yet approved it, he says. &quot;Incidents of violence could have been controlled to a great extent if that law had been approved by the assembly,&quot; he says.

دوہری زنجیروں میں جکڑا ہے مقدر نے مجھے: 'تشدد کا شکار ٹرانس جینڈر افراد تھانوں اور عدالتوں کا رخ کرنے سے گریز کرتے ہیں'۔

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