PESHAWAR: Members of TransAction Alliance and other civil society organisations have rejected a ‘fact-finding report’ issued by the Lady Reading Hospital regarding death of Alisha, a transgender activist who succumbed to her wounds recently at the hospital.

Speaking at a press conference at Peshawar Press Club on Friday, TransAction Alliance president Farzana said that the inquiry report had confirmed that Alisha died due to negligence of the doctors and demanded judicial probe into the case.

Alisha was shot eight times near her residence at Parda Bagh in the limits of Faqirbabad police station.

The transgender activist remained under treatment for some days in LRH and succumbed to her wounds on May 25.

Keeping in view allegations of various CSOs, the provincial government had constituted a committee to investigate the causes of Alisha’s death.

“This report is just ‘eyewash’ which confirms our stance that senior doctors never checked Alisha while junior doctors kept on experimenting on the victim,” Farzana said.

The alliance president said that Alisha was shifted from male ward to female ward and from one room to another and never received intensive care in the ICU. The report, she said, confirmed that the patient was moved to orthopaedic ward without any reason and with no authority and consultation.

“The evidence and videos provided by TransAction Alliance were not taken into consideration,” she said.

Qamar Naseem of Blue Veins, who is member of the advisory council of TransAction Alliance, asked for medical and administrative audit of the Lady Reading hospital, saying that the administration was running the hospital like a private property.

“Many transgender people are denied health care because of their identity. We demand of the government to ensure proper medical treatment to all the people without any discrimination,” he said.

He said that the probe body included only the representatives of LRH and provincial government while not a single member/representative of the transgender community or family/guardians of the deceased was inducted in the committee.

“No intimation was given to the family/guardians of the deceased or representatives of the transgender community regarding the constitution of the probe committee and no statement was recorded of the attendants/friends who were with the deceased during her predicament in LRH or after her death,” Mr Naseem lamented.

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2016