Abdul Aziz: Man who saved many lives by dodging bullets and running at the Christchurch gunman

In the worst ever terror attack in New Zealand, multiple gunmen carried out random shootings at two mosques in Christchurch during the Friday prayers, leaving 49 people dead and at least 48 wounded, but the numbers would have been more if it wasn’t Abdul Aziz Wahabzadah.

On Friday afternoon when the gunfire started, Abdul Aziz was praying with his four children at the Linwood mosque in Christchurch. As soon as he heard the shots, he ran outside grabbing a credit card reader along the way. He confronted that gunman in “army clothes” who was armed with guns and a camera.

While speaking to the CNN, Abdul Aziz stated that to distract the gunman from the mosque, he threw the credit card reader. He said “I just wanted to scare him so that he doesn’t come inside, but unfortunately, he did come in.

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The credit card reader hit the shooter, who then ran back to the parking lot and began firing at Abdul Aziz. The shooter dropped the first gun which was as a shotgun and started shooting with the semi-automatic gun. The shooter couldn’t get a good angle on Abdul Aziz since he was ducking between cars and a fence.

Thinking the shooter was going to a car to get more weapons, Abdul Aziz said he picked up the shotgun which was dropped by the shooter and ran after the man and tried to pull the trigger, but realized the gun was empty.

Describing the incident, Abdul Aziz said “When he saw me chasing him with a gun, he sat in his car and i threw the shotgun on his car’s window like an arrow and blast his window. And he probably thought I shot and he drove off.”

Abdil Aziz didn’t stop there. He said he continued chasing the shooter, who did a U-turn and raced off. It was then that Abdul Aziz says he returned to the mosque to discover the scope of the violence.

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