Gunman opens fire as father and son try to flee
When Yasir Amin saw a gunman stop his car and take aim through the passenger window, he told his father to run.
Yasir, 35, and his father, 67-year-old Muhammad Amin Nasir, were walking towards the Masjid Al Noor in Christchurch on Friday afternoon, unaware the gunman had opened fire on the congregation inside.
Yasir heard a couple of shots and saw a boy jumping a fence but put the disturbance down to kids fighting.
Seconds later the gunman fled the mosque in a car; saw Yasir and his father, and stopped.
‘‘When I saw the gun that close I told my father to run away,’’ Yasir said. ‘‘We both ran but I was maybe two steps ahead.’’
Glass from the front passenger window of the car exploded on to the footpath as the gunman opened fire from the driver’s seat. The pair scrambled into the car park of a motel before Yasir looked back to check on his father. ‘‘When I turned he was ... on the ground ... there was blood all around his body.’’ Yasir went in the ambulance with his father to Christchurch Hospital. There he learnt the extent of the tragedy.
His father had had three surgeries since Friday, Yasir said, and he was being kept in an induced coma.
Yasir moved from Pakistan five years ago, and lives in Christchurch with his wife and children. His father lives in Pakistan, and had been visiting Yasir.