A trans woman who spent years helping other trans people get heard by the police has died after being attacked by men she had already reported to the police.

Her name was Zoya. She lived in Bahawalnagar, in Pakistan’s Punjab province. On October 23, four men beat her with sticks while she was on her way to the district headquarters hospital with her sister. She died of her injuries the next day, Dawn reports.

Two suspects, brothers, have now been arrested. Here’s what is known, what isn’t, and why one detail in this case should worry everyone.

What happened

These details come from police, as reported by Dawn on October 28:

  • October 23: Four people attacked Zoya with sticks as she headed to the DHQ hospital with her sister.
  • October 24: Zoya died of her injuries.
  • The case: A police spokesperson said a murder case has been registered against all four suspects, and two of them, brothers, have been arrested.

Gayety, citing the Pakistani outlet Voicepk.net, adds that District Police Officer Muhammad Imran formed a team to arrest everyone involved, and that the two other men had not yet been identified. A police official said the investigation is continuing.

Some outlets give her name as Zoya Malik. We use Zoya, the name she lived by.

She had already gone to the police

This is the part that stops you.

According to police, the suspects had wanted a relationship with Zoya. When she refused, they began harassing and threatening her. About a month before the attack, Zoya registered a case against them at the B Division police station, alleging harassment, violence and death threats, Dawn reports.

Her sister, Mehnaz Bano, filed the murder complaint. She told Voicepk.net that the men had pressured Zoya to give a statement in their favour in that earlier case and threatened to kill her if she refused, Gayety reports. That is the family’s account; police have not set out a motive in court, and no one has been convicted.

What is not in dispute: Zoya used the system. She reported the threats. And she was still killed.

Who Zoya was

Zoya wasn’t only someone the system was supposed to protect. For several years she was part of it.

She worked as a victim response officer at the district police office in Bahawalnagar, where, Dawn reports, she helped address the challenges faced by the transgender community. In other words, she was the person trans people in her district could turn to when they needed the police to take them seriously.

That makes her death a loss twice over: for the people who loved her, and for a community that had one of its own on the inside.

The bigger picture in Pakistan

Pakistan has visible khwaja sira and trans communities with a long cultural history, as PinkNews notes. It also has a landmark law that is now partly in limbo.

In 2018, Parliament passed the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, which among other things allowed legal gender recognition. In May 2023, the Federal Shariat Court struck down several of its provisions, ruling that a person cannot change their gender based on “self-perceived identity” and rejecting the clause that let the national registration authority change gender on identity documents, the Associated Press reported. Activists said they would appeal to the Supreme Court, and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and Amnesty International criticised the ruling.

Violence is the other constant. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province alone, activists told Tribal News Network in June 2025 that at least 154 transgender people had been killed since 2015.

Investigators have not said whether Zoya was targeted because she was trans. But a pattern of harassment, a refusal, a police report and then a fatal attack is one trans women in many countries will recognise.

What happens next

  • Two more suspects named in the murder case have not been arrested yet. Police say the investigation is ongoing.
  • The earlier harassment case Zoya filed is now part of the story. Whether it was handled with enough urgency is a fair question for Bahawalnagar’s police, and one local reporters are well placed to keep asking.
  • The prosecution will be the real test. Arrests are a start. Convictions are what tell a community its lives count.

If you’re reading this from somewhere it isn’t safe

If someone is threatening you, keep a dated record of every message and incident, keep copies of anything you file with the police, and make sure someone you trust knows where you are going and when you’ll be back. None of that should be your job. But it can help.

And if you’re far away and want to do something: share the verified reporting, use her name, and don’t let this be a story that disappears after one news cycle.

Rest in power, Zoya.