Muzzaffar

Muzzaffar is the oldest son of a single mother; he's also a conman who poses as a hitman. For years he's been careful to not get caught but a new mark who wants Muzzaffar to kill the leader of sex trafficking ring will create moral and practical problems. Especially now that his younger brother has been put into a Countering Violent Extremism (PREVENT) programme. Muzzaffar’s dad left after his younger brother, Jebran, who has downs syndrome was born. Since then Muzzaffar has seen his mother struggle by herself to provide for his brother and him while struggling with the stigma of being a divorced woman with a ‘disabled’ kid. Muzzaffar quickly learned that he couldn’t rely on anyone but his own family, who he would do anything for. Seeing his mother struggle every day he begins to play with the moral ambiguities of the law and eventually becomes a conman who poses as a hitman. He reasons that this isn’t a real crime since it has no real victims, in fact he believes that he’s preventing people from being killed! To attract high paying clients, he posts carefully worded adverts on the dark web. Picking his marks very carefully so that he can maintain his public cover, a business consultant, he manages to successfully con hundreds of thousands from victims. The pilot begins when Muzzaffar is approached by a client, Gahez, to kill a charismatic Muslim holy man known as Pir Saab. Muzzaffar is initially reluctant because this isn’t his usual clientele. He’s more used to high flying businessmen who want to kill their wives or mistresses, but he reasons money is money. Besides, he isn’t going to go through with it. Eventually Gahez admits that he can’t pay all the money but he was trying to protect his cousin Raheela. Pir Saab is trying to convince Raheela’s dad to marry her to her cousin in Pakistan, Pir Saab will make all the arrangements for the wedding to go ahead. Raheela is a strong willed, observant Muslim woman who has just left school with an offer to study classics at Cambridge, she doesn’t want to get married yet, much less to someone she hasn’t met. When Muzzaffar learns this, he decides not to take on the job. Not only can they not pay, but he feels bad about conning them. He admits to Gahez that he’s really a conman and hasn’t actually killed anyone so he can’t help them. A few days later Gahez learns that Pir Saab is actually the leader of a sex trafficking ring who was planning on kidnapping and selling Raheela in to sexual slavery. Gahez is now even more determined to kill him but finding no other options he turns to Muzzaffar again, who has at least pretended to be a hitman. When Muzzaffar hears Gahez’s new information, he’s even more torn. He’s survived so long on the edges of the law by not doing anything that could get him caught. Muzzaffar has also had recent run ins with the police who have put his younger brother in to a counter extremism programme to try and put pressure on Muzzaffar. Eventually Muzzaffar relents and agrees to help Gahez. Unknown to Muzzaffar the placement of Jebran in the counter extremism programme is part of a wider investigation in to Muzzaffar’s activities. The police suspect that Muzzaffar is a part of a terrorist network who are laundering and funding extremists in Syria, but they have no real evidence. The police remove Jebran from Muzzaffar and his mum Aghala in order to get Muzzaffar to work with them. Muzzaffars world is filled with the politics and culture of being ‘other’ in society. This is the backdrop to everything that happens. The racialisation of Muzzaffar and his faith as extremism provides the tension between him and the police. We also meet a number of other characters who want to do good for their communities, like Jonah Reid. Jonah is a support worker who works with Jebran and becomes deeply disillusioned by the system when the police take away Jebran. We also see a much more nuanced portrayal of Muslim women through Raheela and Aghala. They are observant Muslim women with identities, ambitions and opinions of their own. Muzzaffars world has many different types and ethnicities of Muslims. Imam Abdul Wali is a Nigerian imam on the estate where Muzzaffar lives who is passionate about racial justice and advocating for his community. On the other hand we have Imam Wajib Namaz who is a white convert and the prevent officer who advises the police that Jebran should be removed from his family. There is also Constable Asif Raja who grew up with Muzzaffar and believes that the best way for his community to progress is to work in the police. These characters not only help to flesh out Muzzaffars world, but also his community.