British-Asian cast lead new BBC3 drama

(C) BBC/Des Willie

A new preview clip and pictures reveal Adeel Ahktar (Utopia) and Kiran Sonia Sawar (Legends) lead the cast of BBC Three’s 75-minute factual-based drama, Murdered By My Father.

Inspired by real events, and written by new screenwriter Vinay Patel, Murdered By My Father tells the shocking story of the so-called ‘honour’ killing of a 17-year-old girl by her father – in a riveting exploration of how family love and duty can be turned to violence and murder.

Adeel plays the character of Shahzad, the widowed father of Salma (Sawar) who feels he needs to control her burgeoning teenage wish for freedom. Salma’s love interest, Imi is played by Mawaan Rizwan (DNN), and her younger brother Hassan is played by Reiss Jeram.

Based on testimonies of a range of individuals, many of whom have never spoken in public, as well as charities and institutions set up to deal with the problem of ‘honour’ based violence, the drama depicts a hard-hitting story about the destructive power of love.

‘Honour’ killings continue to occur across various cultures and communities in the UK today – with 12,000 ‘honour-based’ crimes reported in the UK since 2010 and 29 murders committed in the past five years.

Murdered By My Father follows the renowned success of BBC Three’s BAFTA-award-winning Murdered By My Boyfriend and also Don’t Take My Baby.

Controller of BBC Three, Damian Kavanagh, says: “BBC Three continues to be the home of thought-provoking content for younger audiences to discover and I’m delighted that we’ve assembled such a strong cast for this remarkable, hard-hitting drama inspired by real events. This is also a good example of the creative freedom we now have – we’ve lined up some brilliant short-form content to supplement the film and we’re no longer constrained by timeslots – Murdered By My Father runs to 75 minutes because that’s what has worked for telling this incredibly powerful story.”

Murdered By My Father is due to air online from late-March 2016.