A member of the transgender community was allegedly attacked and tortured early on Sunday, Mansehra police said.

According to a first information report of the incident, a man named Bilal, accompanied by his relatives, attacked the transgender person in question while she was at home.

The transgender person sustained several bruises and, according to police, was shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital in Mansehra and treated in the emergency ward.

TransAction, a rights group advocating for transgender rights in Pakistan, protested the attack. It alleged that 479 incidents of violence and eight murders of transgender persons have taken place in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa in 2018 alone.

“The silence of the KP government is criminal and shameful," the group said.

TransAction has also said that members of the community will hold a sit-in protest in front of the Peshawar Press Club to demand that the government take measures to stop violence against the transgender community.

The organisation also claimed that instead of providing them security, police had advised the transgender community to stay indoors after 10pm, "knowing that all musical events that the transgender community attends run late into the night".

On the other hand, the mother of Bilal — the main accused named in the FIR — has made a counter claim in an application to the area's DPO stating that members of the community had actually beaten up Bilal, who was 'missing' since the attack.

The mother also claimed that Bilal was “lured” into spending time with the transgender community by the injured transgender person in spite of the mother's repeated requests for them to stay away from Bilal.