He became increasingly politicised when observing the racism of the white senior staff, segregated facilities, and racially unequal pay and conditions.
[2] Asvat took over a small surgery in Soweto from his brother, and soon established a thriving practice, often treating more than 100 patients a day, often on a pro bono basis.
[2] During the 1976 Soweto Uprising, Asvat treated numerous children who were shot by the police, and his surgery was guarded by residents of a nearby squatter camp.
[2] He was an important link between Lenasia, the Indian township that he lived in, and neighbouring Soweto, discarding the racial and social taboos of the time.
[3] Asvat voluntarily stepped down as leader of the TCB in 1981, but remained a cricketer for the rest of his life, playing for the Crescents, and organising a junior league in the late 1980s.
[2] Asvat and his associates also traveled to the Vaal Triangle during unrest in there in 1984, to treat those hurt in the violence, and to document injuries inflicted by the apartheid security forces.
[15][2] Despite sharp political differences between the UDF and AZAPO, that erupted into violence-resulting in many deaths and injuries-Albertina Sisulu and Asvat continued working together, and treated casualties from both sides of the conflict.
[2] Asvat was elected president of the newly formed Lenasia-based People’s Education Committee (PEC), despite his Black Consciousness ideology differing from the pro-ANC views of the rest of the organisation.
Among the programmes of the PEC, was a campaign to get black African children admitted to House of Delegates-run segregated Indian schools.
[2] During the 1986 State of Emergency in South Africa, and with Asvat underground, an attempt was made by unknown forces to fire-bomb his home in Lenasia.
[2] Also in 1988, the authorities decided to develop the squatter camp where Asvat's practice was situated in the "Chicken Farm" area of Soweto.
[3] In the period immediately before the murder, Asvat became uncharacteristically fearful,[2] and the night before his death, he drove home on a flat tyre, telling his wife that he thought that an unspecified 'they' were trying to set him up for attack.
[2] Soon after Asvat's murder, Winnie Mandela gave an interview to a Sunday newspaper claiming that he was killed because he could corroborate (baseless[17]) allegations that Methodist minister Paul Verryn had molested Stompie Seipei.
[19] Mbatha and Dlamini both claimed in testimony to the TRC that Winnie Mandela had paid them R20,000[4] (equivalent to $8,000 at the time), and that she provided them with a gun[20][21] to kill Asvat.
[21] Mbatha also claimed that he had immediately implicated Mandela in the murder, but was forced by police to change his confession to the attack being a robbery, due to torture.
[4] A group of men in combat fatigues associated with Winnie Mandela were accused by Mbata's lawyers of attempting to intimidate his family during a TRC hearing.
[21] When Albertina Sisulu testified, she failed to corroborate an appointment card that would have placed Winnie Mandela at the surgery on the morning of the killing, claiming to have forgotten much about the day of the murder.
[2][16] The section of the R554 road linking Soweto to Lenasia was renamed Abu Baker Asvat Drive by the post-apartheid government.