HYDERABAD: A consumer protection court judge has remanded 14 transgender activists and a female junior clerk from the Hyderabad SSP’s office to judicial custody for 14 days, as police released audio recordings they say prove the protest at police headquarters on Wednesday was pre-planned.

Judge Sajjad Hussain Khoso issued the order on Thursday after the accused were produced by Cantonment police station SHO Inspector Malik Javed Iqbal. They were handcuffed only as they entered the courtroom. The court directed the prison authorities to ensure the accused receive necessary medical treatment. All 15 have been sent to a women’s prison.

The case — crime No. 100/26, registered under Sections 114, 353, 147, 149, 120-B, 427 and 504 of the Pakistan Penal Code — was lodged on the complaint of the SHO. Police had sought custody and remand of the accused.

SSP Shahzeb Chachar released two audio messages he said were sent by junior clerk Maria Sario to transgender activist Pinky Shaikh ahead of Wednesday’s protest. In one recording, Sario could be heard instructing Shaikh to stage a disruption inside the SSP’s office. “I am just reaching. You just create tamasha which should be like one or two transgender persons should tear shirts and film it. You pretend you had come to Inspector Benazir Zardari for a case but she threatened you to leave the office,” Sario was heard saying.

In a second audio, Sario urged the group to go further. “You should denude everyone today. You should scream to a level that the entire office should request her. You should say we will keep protesting and let SSP baton charge you. How dare the inspector conduct a media trial at lawyers’ behest,” she was heard telling Shaikh.

Sario also urged the activists to tell the SSP that they had worked with her for five years but that Inspector Zardari had been abusing them in collusion with lawyers and holding her media trial at their behest. “If you did it I shall remain beholden to you for the rest of my life,” she said.

Police have also obtained video footage showing the protesters in conversation with the clerk inside the SSP office following the first round of protests. The mobile phones of the clerk and the activists have been seized.

SSP Chachar defended the decision to order arrests. “Had Wednesday’s action not been taken, the entire force would have been demoralised. It would have become a precedent that a mob could intrude into an office and force an SSP to accept certain demands,” he said.

The SSP said Sario had repeatedly sought to have her former position restored after Inspector Benazir Zardari was placed in charge of the women’s complaint facilitation cell under the direct supervision of Cantonment DSP Paras Bakrani.

Published in Dawn, June 5th, 2026