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Life Chances

The Boy in the Burqa

Duration: 14 minutes

First broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 LWLatest broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 FM

Available for over a year

20 years ago, journalist Athar Ahmad walked through the gates of his secondary school in west London. The school was what everyone in the area described as a ‘rough’ school but its students all felt as though they faced many of the same challenges and went through many of the same experiences.

But three of Athar’s classmates wouldn’t make it to the age he is now.

In this raw and personal series, Athar asks why the lives of his classmates went down such different paths and why three of them ended up dead - murdered brutally and violently.

As Athar tries to make sense of what happened, he explores issues around multiculturalism, identity and life for communities in the UK, told through the prism of a school at the crossroads of modern Britain.

In this fourth episode, the story of Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed. How his parents, like that of so many pupils at Acton High, moved to the UK for a better life, but tt was a life Mohammed would reject.

Presenter: Athar Ahmad
Producer: Georgia Catt Show less

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