Life Chances

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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Life Chances: The Boy in the Burqa

The Boy in the Burqa

BBC Radio 4 - Life Chances, The Boy in the Burqa

Told by a classmate, the story of one school and three students who were killed.

The story of one school and three of its students who ended up dead. The story of Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed.

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

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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Athar Ahmad tells the story of three of his classmates from school who ended up dead.

Athar Ahmad revisits the stories of three of his schoolmates who all died in violent and troubling ways.  Twenty years later he asks why.

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