Police in Pakistan say they have found the bodies of three transgender people on a roadside in the southern city of Karachi, in the latest violence against the community.

They were shot dead by unidentified assailants and their bodies discovered shortly after midnight on Sunday in the Memon Goth area of Karachi, police said.

“The bullet-riddled bodies of three transgender women were found on a highway,” city police official Javed Ahmed Abro told the AFP news agency.

Authorities are still in the process of confirming their identities and have yet to determine a motive.

Amnesty International says there has been a concerning rise in violence against trans people, also known as Hijras, in Pakistan.

“Transgender persons are a vulnerable segment of society, and we must all give them dignity and respect,” Sindh’s provincial chief minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said in a statement.

In 2018, Pakistan’s Senate voted to support a bill protecting the rights of transgender people, and allowing them to determine their own gender identity.

The Transgender Rights Act was praised by many globally, but key sections were later revoked by a sharia court.

Estimates say there are about half a million transgender citizens in the country and they face continued social exclusion and abuse.

A 2023 report in The Lancet journal noted that 90% of transgender people in Pakistan face physical assaults.