GUNMEN shot dead three transgender women on the outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, before fleeing the scene, police said today, underscoring the dangers faced by the community across the country.

The victims’ bodies were found on a roadside on Sunday. All three were shot at close range and the victims were later buried in a local graveyard, senior police official Javed Abro said.

The motive was not immediately clear and a hunt was under way to trace and arrest the killers, Mr Abro said.

Sindh province Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah condemned the killings and ordered a probe.

“Transgenders are an oppressed section of society,” he said, vowing that those behind the attack would be arrested.

Members of the transgender community staged a protest on Sunday outside Karachi’s Jinnah hospital, where the bodies were taken for autopsy. They warned of nationwide demonstrations if the killers were not brought to justice.

Transgender rights activist Bindiya Rana told reporters today that violence against the community “is not new and it is deeply embedded in our society.”

“If the police fail to identify the killers, we will announce a countrywide protest,” she said.

The Gender Interactive Alliance identified the victims as Karachi residents who earned their livelihood by begging. The group also pointed to a separate knife attack two days earlier that critically wounded another transgender woman at Karachi’s Sea View beach.

“These back-to-back tragedies show that the community is being systematically targeted. This is not just about individual killings, it is an attempt to terrorise and silence an entire community,” the alliance said, demanding immediate arrests, a dedicated protection unit for transgender persons and greater solidarity from civil society.