Published on, Sept. 23 -- September 23, 2025 2:51 AM

Three transgender Pakistanis were gunned down and dumped like waste on a highway in Karachi, and as always, the police filed an FIR, the government mouthed platitudes, and the cycle of ritual condemnations resumed. For now, the cameras are busy rolling with outrage gaining traction on social media. However, all this would soon give way to a deafening silence. The dead join a long, anonymous procession of bodies that this republic refuses to count.

Let us not deceive ourselves. This is not an isolated crime. For a community already hounded out of schools, jobs, and homes, the graveyard has become the only place left where the state cannot evict them. A 2023 study found that more than 9...