Officials said that the transgender persons were returning from a musical evening when they were attacked by gunmen riding a motorcycle at the Charsada Road.

According to media reports, so far three transgender persons have been killed and three injured over the last three months in different areas of Mardan.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has witnessed an increase in the attacks against transgender persons over the past few months, with targeted incidents being reported in Peshawar and Mansehra.

Trans activist Dr Moiz Mehrub Awan, while recently speaking on Dawn News show Zara Hat Kay, pointed out that KP has a exorbitantly high murder rate in context of the trans community.

"The murder rate of transgender persons in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is 789 per 100,000 people.

"In contrast, the national murder rate of Pakistan is 3.9 per 100,000 people. The highest murder rate is in El Salvador at 52 per 100k people. KPK's trans murder rate is 15x higher than this," Awan also tweeted.

Earlier this month, at least five transgender persons were injured inside their house in the Upper Channia area in Mansehra when they were shot by a man in an apparent hate crime incident. The Mansehra Police had managed to arrest and book a man, who was identified as Sabteen Khan.

According to Mansehra Operations Jamil Akhter, the accused was living at the transgender persons’ house but became violent and opened fire when a friend of one of the transgender people came to meet them.

Reacting to such incidents, National Commission for Human Rights Chairperson Rabiya Javeri on March 18 wrote a letter to the KP Police inspector general.

“Serious attention needs to be given to the rise in hate crimes against transgender persons in Pakistan,” the commission had said in a tweet.

“Crimes against transgender community are occurring at an alarming rate. The latest gang attacks on transgender persons is a continuation of criminal behaviour which is a cause of great concern and requires immediate redressal,” it read.

The commission was of the view that hate crimes were an attempt to hurt people not just physically, but also emotionally and psychologically. It had called for expeditious inquiry and intervention to prevent any further attacks.