Nirma’s Murder – A Transwoman Failed by the Justice System

They are abandoned, disowned, and discarded without a bat of an eye by their own families – but when it comes to reaping their blood money as a result of their inhumane killing, all familial ties suddenly remerge. Such is the fateful story of a transgendered person Nirma, who was brutally murdered in Peshawar.

While transgenders throughout the country face abuse, assault, torture, are ridiculed and considered inferior owing to their gender – their vulnerability is far more pronounced in regions such as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where cultural and social norms dictate behavior protocols to a greater degree and are generally deemed more conservative/traditional. Transgenders in the country mostly rely on dancing, begging, and sex work to make their ends meet, all of which are considered taboo in society and therefore lay a path for their eventual harassment and mistreatment by most segments.

Killings among transgender in Pakistan is ever- increasing. According to the local group Trans Action, as many as 479 attacks against transgender women were reported in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province in 2018. At least four transgender women were killed there in 2018, and at least 57 have been killed there since 2015.^[1] Recent years have seen a rising number of trans people being killed. Their stories of murders with impunity raise immense concerns regarding the safety of transgenders in our society. Nirma was one of those unfortunate souls who lost her life to a gruesome murder. The events of her death were narrated and later hacked to pieces. The details of this ruthless murder are enough to gauge the inhumanity with which she was murdered and the price she had to pay for a mere refusal.  Her murderer was caught red-handed by the police when he put the mutilated parts in a bag and was carrying it around late at night to dispose them of. The police saw the blood dripping and asked him to explain, to which he maintained he was a butcher and was carrying around meat. Since it was late at night, the police did not find his explanation plausible enough and tried to investigate further. Upon seeing the contents of the bag, they located a dismembered head and arrested him right away. Her family refused to take ownership of her and so her body parts had to be buried in a police graveyard.

Her story does not end with Nirma getting justice for her life, instead even account of being caught red-handed, the murderer evaded punishment because even though FIR was filed immediately, the other party had strong ties and was able to sway the judges. When it came to a settlement of the case, blood money was offered to the family of the deceased. It was at that moment they took ownership of her as their own and benefited from her death after refusing to even bury her initially. The murderer was acquitted based on that pardon later.

This portrays the extent to which even the families of these transgenders abhor being associated with them in their lifetime, but will selfishly jump to accepting reward as a means to forgive the perpetrators. The hatred by their family also highlights the suffering and harassment they face not just from society in general but also from their flesh and blood. No one can say for sure what the purpose behind that murder was, some call it an honor killing, others view it as collateral in a fit of rage – whatever the reason, a thorough investigation would have identified the cause. And in case it was indeed an honor killing, a clause classifying it as an honor crime would have barred the estranged family from walking away with the blood money. In 2016, the parliament abolished this right to curb these so-called honor killings subsequently letting families get away with murders in the name of “honor crimes”.

Instances such as Nirma’s inhumane killing where the murderer was caught initially and yet walks free highlight the callousness with which these cases are treated. A conclusive investigation that hands out a strict punishment would set a precedent for the transgender society and may deter the unwarranted killings of these individuals. This measure holds immense importance, especially in the current setting where the murders and attempted murders of transgenders, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, are rising exorbitantly in numbers. Better scrutiny and immediate justice would help evade another transgender experiencing the same fate as that of the rather ill-fated Nirma.

[1] “World Report 2019: Rights Trends in Pakistan.” Human Rights Watch, 17 Jan. 2019, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/pakistan.