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Journalist Mobeen Azhar was born and raised in Huddersfield.

His new six-part series ‘Hometown’ documents an investigation exploring drugs, violence and the police shooting of Yassar Yaqub.

Here, in the first of three articles for The Examiner, he writes about why Huddersfield is at the centre of a story that has national significance.

I came back to Huddersfield to write about the police shooting of 28-year-old Yassar Yaqub. The investigation spanned almost two years and brought me face to face with the violence, gangs and drug dealing blighting my hometown.

I found British Pakistanis are significantly over-represented when it comes to convictions for possession with intent to supply class A drugs in Yorkshire and Humber.

Some of the dealers used their interpretation of the Islamic faith to justify their actions. I frequently heard some Muslim dealers “only sell to white people”.

A heroin importer revealed heroin prices go up annually around the Muslim holy month of Ramadan as Pakistani dealers take a break from illegal activity.

Why is this happening and what does any of it have to do with Yassar Yaqub?

Yassar Yaqub was 28 when the car he was travelling in was forced to stop by unmarked police cars. Soon after, he was shot and killed. Today, the final moments of his life are the subject of an Independent Office of Police Conduct investigation.

When I first met Yassar’s father, Mohammed, he was a man in mourning. I was invited into the Yaqub family home. I was shown around Yasser’s bedroom, unchanged since his death. I heard how he liked designer clothes and “looking after himself”. Mohammed also told me his son had worked for the families luxury car business and that he had “£68 in his bank account when he died.”

There are long standing rumours about Yassar Yaqub’s involvement in the drugs trade. Allegations his father fervently denies. In late 2018 when Mohsin Amin, Rexhino Arapaj and David Butlin, the men with whom Yassar spent his final hours, went on trial for conspiracy to possess a firearm with intent to endanger life, it felt like Yassar himself was on trial. The co-accused were arrested at the road side just after Yassar was killed. Had he been alive, he would have been facing the same charge.

Each day of the trial more detail of Yassar’s life emerged. A machete and body armour had been found by the police in Yassar’s bedroom. A gun, ammunition and a silencer were in the footwell of the car Yassar was travelling in when he died. When Amin, the man acting as Yassar’s driver was asked if Yassar was a drug dealer, he responded; “Yes. He sold drugs.”

Butlin and Arapaj were eventually acquitted on the main charge, but the trial concluded with Amin being found guilty of conspiracy to possess a firearm with intent to endanger life. He is now serving an 18 year sentence. If Yassar was alive today, it’s more than likely, he too would be in prison.

The image of Yassar established in court, a gun carrying, machete owning man who sold drugs, fit in with the Huddersfield I came back to.

Since my return, I’d become acutely aware of the violence across town. I’d hear about a ‘firearms incident’ on local radio or a friend would text me a tip off.

When I’d turn up on the scene, there was a pattern: locals reluctantly telling me they’d heard gun shots, seen blood on the floor or witnessed a masked man speeding off into the distance.

The words ‘young’, ‘Pakistani’ and ‘man’ kept coming up, as well as suggestions that the violence was the result of a drug turf war.

The violence was clustered in areas like Birkby where I used to live or Fartown where I went to school. It felt more like a war zone than the sleepy town I remembered growing up in.

To understand what was really going on, I couldn’t just rely on eye-witnesses who were often too scared to speak openly. I began to spend time with drug users as well as those who were actively involved in the drugs trade – some of whom had known Yassar. These meetings were organised through a web of trusted fixers.

I met active dealers at every level of the drugs trade. This included teenagers who were being paid to move drugs from one location to another, all the way up the chain to importers who were bringing millions of pounds worth of heroin into the UK.

One man told me Yassar was a “kingpin” who he had “delivered kilos for”. The street value of one kilo of heroin is £100,000. The claim that Yassar was dealing in kilos of heroin was verified by multiple sources.

Yassar was now part of a much bigger story, linking Huddersfield and the region to the international drugs trade.

A Freedom of Information request revealed that British Pakistanis made up 27% of those convicted in Yorkshire and the Humber for possession with intent to supply class a drugs in a twelve month period in 2016-2017, despite being only 6% of the population.

The majority of those convicted, in the region as well as nationally are white, but why are British Pakistanis over represented? I needed to understand how and why this was happening. The next phase of my investigation would involve meeting the families of drug dealers and seeing first hand, the devastating impact heroin was having on my hometown.

‘Hometown’ is available on iplayer as a 6 part box set and on BBC One from Wednesday 19th June.