Coronation Street extremism storyline reaches horrifying climax as Alya is stabbed
Dramatic new pictures from Coronation Street's extremism storyline show the horrifying moment Alya Nazir is stabbed.
First-look images from tomorrow night's episode reveal that when a refugee drop-in session at Speed Daal is targeted by the racist group, Alya (Sair Khan) is left fighting for her life.
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The ITV1 soap has been featuring a long-running storyline about impressionable and disenfranchised young men being targeted by far-right extremists for grooming, with Max Turner (Paddy Bever) befriended by older "mentors" who offer him a sense of belonging.
In this week's Corrie episodes, Maria Connor (Samia Ghadie) gets the refugee drop-in session she has been campaigning for underway at local restaurant Speed Daal, without realising that she is in mortal danger from hate-filled teen Blake who goes to the event armed with a knife.
He is intent on attacking Maria during her speech and is live streaming the whole thing, but when Max - watching the video - spots his knife, he finally springs into action to warn his neighbours what is about to happen.
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Max rushes down to Speed Daal, but finds his entrance blocked by a wary Gary Windass (Mikey North) and watches helplessly as Blake storms towards Maria brandishing the knife.
Alya also sees what is about to unfold and bravely jumps in front of Blake, but is stabbed in the stomach and as the crowd tries to capture Blake, Alya is rushed to hospital for life-saving surgery.
Max fell under the spell of the right-wing extremists after being targeted by Griff, who used him for his video skills to spread messages of hate and racist propaganda online.
Although Max eventually saw what Griff was doing and alerted people to a bomb planted in Speed Daal's van - which Alya drove away, saving many lives - his actions are about to come back to bite him, as he is arrested when Blake tells police his knife attack was inspired by Max's videos.
In upcoming episodes Max tries to come to terms with the consequences of his actions and his attempts to explain his involvement with the group to the police, as he faces a lengthy jail sentence for incitement to commit murder.
Producer Iain Macleod said: "We are exploring a very 21st Century problem: teenagers self-radicalising through watching extreme content online.
"In the end, we wanted this to be a story about communication within families - what are the right and wrong ways to talk to younger family members who are gravitating towards extreme views?"
Coronation Street airs the knife attack scenes on Wednesday at 8pm on ITV1.