The adrenaline of fighting off a terrorist was still pumping when Abdul Aziz asked police: "Put me in the cell with him for 15 minutes."

The father-of-four had just spent a few frenzied minutes dodging bullets, hurling abuse and objects, and chasing the gunman from Linwood mosque in Christchurch, before being mistakenly arrested and taken in for questioning on March 15.

Six months on from the country's darkest day, Aziz says it is "still fresh in our minds".

There were 51 Muslim men, women and children killed or mortally wounded at the Linwood and Al Noor mosques that day.

The community is slowly healing, helped by the support they felt from the nation, Aziz said. Travelling to Hajj – an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia – last month had also "eased a lot of pain" for him and about 20 people from Linwood and 140 from the Al Noor mosque.

Aziz left Afghanistan when he was 12 years old and Kabul was relatively safe. He was not used to violence.

Sitting in his Redcliffs antique shop adorned with hand-printed signs which say "You are our hero, Abdul", Aziz told Stuff he took on a fight mentality on the day of the attacks.

Aziz was hailed a hero for scaring off the shooter and stopping the deaths of more worshippers – including his four sons 5, 12, 17 and 24 – at Linwood's mosque.

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At one point, the gunman shot at Aziz from just two metres away.

"I could see the bullet pass beside my head."

He "had never shot a gun before", but had picked up the shooter's discarded gun and pulled the trigger before realising it was empty.

It was that gun he threw at the shooter's car windscreen, shattering it and forcing him into driving away.

Apart from a mouthful of blood – which to this day the cause of is unknown – he was uninjured.

Surrounded by dead fellow worshippers, he went to retrieve water requested by a dying victim when he was pulled aside by police and wrongfully accused of being the gunman by bystanders.

The true accused was arrested and brought to a police cell just doors away from where Aziz was being interviewed.

"I said, just put me in the cell with him for 15 minutes.

"At the time, I was out of my mind, and he was out of his mind."

Emotions were so raw that Aziz was not finger-printed that day because the room was too close to the gunman's cell.

The gunman – who he only referred to as "the coward" – had protective gear, helmet, and a gun "and killed innocent people".

"A real man doesn't do that."

But at the station, "I was empty-handed and so was he".

Police "of course" turned down his suggestion of hand-to-hand combat, he said.

He rejected the idea of being a hero.

Muslim belief was that by saving one innocent life "you save humanity", but if you kill one innocent life you kill humanity, he said.

"My life wasn't as important as the brothers and sisters and children inside," he said.

Aziz believed the judicial process had been handled well since the shooting, but he did want to see tighter restrictions on the shooter during his remand.

"That coward killed that many people, and he still can have his mother visit him and he could write letters as well. That's a big failure for us."

Aziz would be "happy to go face with that coward" to give evidence during the trial.