From 1975 to 1991, Abashilov was employed in local Komsomol structures, and in late 1980s he led Dagestani VLKSM Committee.
From 1991 to 2006, Abashilov was chief editor of "Molodezh' Dagestana" (Молодежь Дагестана, Youths of Dagestan).
In 1999, he was elected a member of local legislature, then was appointed deputy head of republican ministry of information, national policy and external affairs.
His car was fired on in the central part of Makhachkala where Abashilov died at the scene and his driver was injured.
[1] In the early hours of the same day another Dagestani journalist, Ilyas Shurpayev, who had worked for years in the republic as a correspondent of NTV and Channel One, was found strangled in Moscow.