RAWALPINDI Three policemen of the Taxila Police were suspended after more than 200 transsexuals gathered to protest `police brutality`, breaking flowerpots and windowpanes at SSP Operations Sardar Maqsood`s office.

Boby, who introduced himself as the President of a group known as She-Male Rights, told reporters that five transsexual wedding dancers had been `brutally tortured` by the Taxila police.

`Police shifted the five hijras (transsexuals) to the police station where they tortured them and later sent them to jail after implicating them in a fake gambling case,` Boby told reporters. She also said that the victims had been deprived of Rs120,000, cellphones, jewellery and a costly sound system by the police.

According to police, the dancers had been rounded up after a raid on a wedding party in Taxila which was flouting a local ban on dancing and singing.

`What we should do to earn livelihood? If the Punjab Chief Minister has banned dancing and singing, then he should provide us jobs,` Boby stated.

Whereas formerly the women had been protesting through sloganeering, song and dance, the mood grew violent when the three suspect policemen arrived at the scene.

The angry protestors attacked the policemen, destroying flowerpots and windowpanes.

Moved by the protest, SSP Sardar Maqsood agreed to institute a full enquiry and suspended the three suspect policemen while the matter is probed.

Meanwhile, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif on Tuesday ordered an investigation to probe claims that Taxila police officials implicated the dancers in false cases and deprived them of their valuables.

The chief minister took the decision after dozens of transsexuals hailing from Taxila and Wah Cantonment held a protest demonstration in Rawalpindi against the police action.