Shahid Azmi

Shahid Azmi (1977 – 11 February 2010) was an Indian lawyer and human rights activist. He is occasionally referred to as "Shaheed Shahid Azmi" – "The Martyr Shahid Azmi" – because of his assassination. There, he was encouraged to resume his education, and by the time he was released, he had pursued a degree in law. In 2003, he began practising as a criminal defense lawyer in Mumbai. The cases handled by him were almost exclusively of defending cases for those accused of terrorism, who he believed had been jailed as scapegoats. He was shot dead by four assailants in his office in Kurla, Mumbai on 11 February 2010 at the age of 32.

Shahid Azmi was the nephew of Abu Asim Azmi, a Samajwadi Party politician and Member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly from the Govandi constituency in Mumbai. One of his brothers, Khalid Azmi, is also an advocate in Mumbai.

Career After receiving his degree, he worked with lawyer Majeed Memon for some months, In July 2008, Azmi filed a petition in the High Court alleging that the accused in the 7/11 Mumbai blasts, then lodged in the Arthur Road Jail, were being tortured. Responding to the petition, the court ordered an inquiry in the case, and the allegations were found to be true.

Death He was killed on 11 February 2010 in his office at Taxi Men colony in Kurla, when four gunmen entered his office and shot two bullets, point blank and fled. Though he was taken to Rajawadi Hospital in Ghatkopar, he was soon declared dead.

Murder case

In February 2010, member of the Bharat Nepali gang, Devendra Babu Jagtap alias JD, Pintoo Deoram Dagale, Vinod Yashwant Vichare and Hasmukh Solanki, were arrested by the police under MCOCA. On 20 January 2011, MCOCA court dropped the MCOCA charges levelled against the accused in the police chargesheet as it found no evidence suggesting "pecuniary gains were made in the crime, a mandatory aspect for MCOCA charges."

Then in April 2011, while the accused were in a sessions court at Kala Ghoda, for a hearing the police caught a man named Munna reportedly of Navlekar gang, with a weapon and live cartridges in the court premises, who had come allegedly to free the accused.

On 23 July 2012, the Bombay High Court granted bail to one of the accused, Vinod Vichare, against a personal bond of Rs 50,000 stating he was not "shown to be present" during the assassination. Vichare had already spent two years in jail, ever since he was held for the possession of one of the four revolvers given to Bharat Nepali.

Accusations on the Intelligence Bureau In a 2007 interview with Rediff News Correspondent Sheela Bhatt, Azmi accused the police of staging an encounter at Antop Hill where a Pakistani was killed, because, that area was isolated and "terrorists always hide in places where you find a lot of other people". He further accused the Intelligence Bureau of perpetrating the 2006 Mumbai train bombings, which are otherwise believed to be the work of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Students Islamic Movement of India. When asked as to why Intelligence Bureau would indulge in such acts against national interests, he said it was to stereotype Muslims and lobby for stringent laws. The film has a scene in which Mr Azmi's face is blackened by assailants outside the court room. This, admittedly was, just a re-enactment of an incident in the director's own life as against that of Azmi. Furthermore, several petitions filed by Azmi were combined into a single case for dramatic effect in the film.

Gujarat Files, a 2016 book by Rana Ayyub is dedicated to Shahid Azmi along with advocate and activist Mukul Sinha.