Daily Times

PESHAWAR: In a horrific incident earlier this week, a transgender Alisha died at Peshawar’s Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) after being shot eight times by a displeased customer.

Transgender female Alisha who was allegedly shot eight times earlier this week by a disgruntled customer succumbed to her wounds at Peshawar’s Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) on Wednesday.

This is the fifth reported case against transgender violence in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) this year after Adnan, Sameer, Komal and Ayesha also lost their lives due to the same deplorable menace. All five of these are members of the Trans Action Alliance (TAA) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a group comprising civil society and transgender people in the province. TAA had been protesting and demanding security but they have been constantly shunned by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak whom they have repeatedly try to reach out to and voice their concerns.

Members of the alliance told Daily Times that there are all sorts of attempts being made to kill, kidnap, harass, rape and humiliate transvestites by different people who extort money from them by abusing or intimidating them. The Facebook page of Trans Action KP have also blamed the KPK’s government for the recent tragedy and also noted that Alisha died because intensive medical attention was never provided to her. The group is also reported to carry her body to the Faqirabad police station for a demonstration.

Another TAA member Qamar Naseem earlier reported the hardships they have to go through and the humiliation they face while transporting an injured trans-person to the oldest hospital facilities of the province. “The doctors kept asking the injured Alisha if she danced only and how much she charged whereas the blood laboratory guy asked them if their blood was HIV positive or not”.

The president of Shemale Association of KPK Farzana Jan further explained the difficulties of transgender people and said that it was debasing how she had to run around looking for doctors and finding a suitable ward while people, mostly attendants with admitted patients, chased her and teased her instead of helping her in the hour of need. Both the male and female wards are reluctant to accept transgender people and therefore transgender patients have to be admitted to private rooms like Alisha was also admitted to a private room in Bolton Block of LRH. She also said that people who were either patients or their attendants ridiculed them and laughed at them while they were suffering instead of giving them deserving medical attention.

She said, “These people don’t laugh at us when they book us for their shows and family functions but they laugh at us when we like any human being are going through some trouble”. She said that she felt belittled and humiliated when instead of helping her injured friend people were laughing at them. “They won’t let us treat our patients or even grieve for our dead at the hospital. I felt as if I am not a human being or even not from this world when I see such inhuman behaviour of so-called Muslim people,” she said.