15 November 2022
By Ahmed Saeed
MULTAN: A person who was accused of stealing Rs235,000 from a shop selling water filtration equipment and who was initially thought to be male, later claimed that he was in fact a female. The accused was arrested by the Old Kotwali police, who said that the person by appearance came across as a male.
The accused was identified as ‘Khalid’ and is now in the custody of the Multan Police was arrested in a case of theft against an unidentified suspect for stealing money from the shop. Later, police traced the suspect through footage from CCTV cameras and carried out the arrest.
In this context, Sub-inspector Iqbal who is also the investigation officer (IO) told Voicepk, “The accused immediately confessed to the crime however he said that he only stole Rs30,000 from the shop to meet his expenses.”
Upon this, the police decided to shift the suspect to the police station for further investigation but were caught by surprise after the accused asked the police officers not to touch him as he identified as a woman.
“We then called the women police officers who thoroughly examined the body of the accused and told us that the accused in fact did possess female anatomy. We then decided to move the accused to the Violence Against Women Centre (VAWC), Multan,” said the IO.
in other surprising revelations revealed to the IO by the accused, he admitted that he used to do black magic for living and it was because of that, that ‘God had punished him by changing his gender’.
“The accused said that he ran out of money as he had received no work in the last three months so he decided to steal some money from the shop,” said the IO.
The police officials believe that the accused changed his gender after undergoing surgery some months ago as the suspect’s computerised national identification card (CNIC) showed him as a male.
The police apprised the judicial magistrate of the entire situation and the magistrate ordered the medical examination of the accused to ascertain her gender. A three-member medical board of Nishtar Hospital Multan will examine the accused on November 17th and present the report before the magistrate.
Until the determination of gender, the accused will be kept at the Violence Against Women Centre (VAWC), Multan.
It must be noted that if it is found that an operation has in fact been carried out to change the gender of this person, it will be in violation of the law, as sex change surgery cannot be carried out until the court gives directions for it. It is also important to note that the doctor if found will also be involved in this violation.
In October, religious parties, especially the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e- Islam (JUI) created an uproar over a bill that grants one-time permission to transgenders to get themselves registered at NADRA as per their perceived gender identity. The religious groups demanded the government repeal the law as they claimed it would encourage same-sex marriages and ‘promote homosexuality’ in society.
However transgender rights groups have rejected such beliefs of the religious parties and have continuously maintained that the law was necessary to provide rights and security to transgenders. They were of the view that a transperson should have the right to determine his or her own gender identity.
