http://www.ndtv.com/news/india/lawyer_f ... mumbai.php
Shahid Azmi, the lawyer for Faheem Ansari, accused of helping the Lashkar-e-Taiba in the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, has been killed.
Four assailants barged into his office in Taxi Men colony in Kurla and shot two bullets into him at point blank range, the police said.
Shahid, who was nephew of Samajwadi Party leader and Govandi MLA Abu Asim Azmi, had also appeared as defence counsel for the accused in July 11 Mumbai local train blasts.
In the past, he has represented those accused in the Ghatkopar and Mulund blasts. The police confirmed that the Chhota Shakeel gang had tried to kill him a few years ago.
His interview to Sheela Butt of Rediff
ttp://news.rediff.com/interview/2010/feb/11/interview-with-shahid-azmi-lawyer-for-terror-accused.htm
Shahid Azmi is angry with the establishment, the police and politicians.
The 29-year-old Mumbai lawyer was arrested under TADA -- even was 18 -- for harbouring Kashmiri radicals; while in Tihar jail, he befriended terrorists Omar Sheikh and Masood Azhar; both men were released in exchange for the passengers and crew abroad the Indian Airlines aircraft hijacked to Kandahar on December 31, 1999.
How can you make such a claim when actual blasts are taking place? Not all missions fail.
There are clear demarcations where cases have happened and where it has not happened. The cases where blasts have not happened you will see that the people who get caught are cadre-based, like the Students Islamic Movement of India [ Images ].
Where missions have taken place they are not from organisations. So what has happened? The police have kept an eye on Muslim organisations who could be a potential threat but they have not been able to do anything. They were annihilated and eliminated before that.
Certain sectors where they were not identified, blasts are happening. It is not happening from Muslim jihadi organisation but some other elements like renegades working for the State.
In some cases the police are very lenient in the investigation. Like the Nanded blast, seizure of explosives in Jogeshwari and Ghatkopar, Mumbai. In such cases the police are lenient. But when Muslims are involved police uses different yardsticks.
So, you believe the police has fixed them all?
I will just give you an example. Open Secrets, a book by M K Dhar, former joint director, Intelligence Bureau, claims that they (the Intelligence Bureau) identified Muslim groups who were a potential threat or potentially militant minded.
They then planted their agent and when we see these cases and then analyse we see a common, monotonous thing happen. In every case, you hear the police claim that how Muslims go to Pakistan, take training, acquire arms and it is during the acquisition of arms that they are arrested.
The police say the missions failed. There can be failure of one mission here or there but not a consistent failure of missions since 1992. Somewhere there is a pattern to the manner in which the police works.
How will you describe Faisal Shaikh?
He is like the boy next door.
Who could have perpetrated the blasts then?
Several people. Several people from the Indian intelligence can do it. These people can be within India or outside India who could have gained. They have it in them.
What will they gain?
To stereotype the enemies, that is Islam and Muslims.