Indian-American Vishnu Pandit, who was among the 12 killed in the Washington mass shooting on Monday, is being remembered by friends and relatives as one who lived his American dream and took immense pride in serving the US Navy.
The Mumbai-born Pandit, 61, was a marine engineer and naval architect at the Washington Navy Yard, where gunman Aaron Alexis went on the rampage till the police shot him dead.
Vishnu “Kisan” Pandit, as he was known, moved to the US in 1974 to pursue graduate studies at the University of Michigan and settled in the country, serving in various capacities as he opted to live his American dream.
“Kisan took great pride in being employed by the United States Navy, which he very proudly served in various capacities as a civilian for 25 years,” the Pandit family wrote in an obituary that was shared with The Washington Post.
“Kisan felt extremely privileged to have contributed to the superiority of the US Navy and the country that he served,” the family noted, remembering him as “a kind and gentle man who loved his family, friends, dog and job”.
Off-work, he was an active member of the local Hare Krishna Hindu Temple. There has been a steady stream of friends and relatives calling on at Pandit’s family home in North Potomac, Maryland.
Pandit wasn’t just an engineer, he was a “pioneer”, M Nuns Jain, a friend from their days at a Calcutta University who followed Pandit to the US, told the Huffington Post. “He definitely lived the American Dream and achieved it,” Jain said, lamenting: “It’s disheartening that the one flaw in the American system is the uncontrollable proliferation of guns.”
Pandit is survived by his wife, Anjali, and two sons, both in their 30s, and a granddaughter.Meanwhile, as investigations into the daring mass shooting in the high-security Navy complex continue, flaws in the system of military background checks are coming in for adverse scrutiny.
Questions are being raised on how gunman Alexis, a discharged US Navy reservist, was continuing to have an all-access pass to half a dozen military installations, despite his arrests a few times for using firearms in angry flare-ups, disorderly conduct and mental health issues. Alexis had entered the Navy Yard with a short gun that he had recently bought in Virginia.
A report in USA Today on Wednesday drew attention to a Pentagon inspector general report that blamed the Navy for having been lax in screening some of its civilian contractors who work at its bases. It went on to reveal that the Navy had provided routine access to as many as 52 convicted felons.The report pointed out that in many cases background checks were only cursory, while at other times temporary badges were provided without any checks.
A Navy spokesman, however, maintained that the findings were not relevant to the present case, saying the report was about a different type of access than the one provided to Alexis.
Although US media has been full of stories and interviews relating to Alexis’s history of erratic behaviour and brushes with the law, none of it appeared to have any bearing on his dealings with the Navy establishment in his new capacity as a subcontractor.
With the new focus on Alexis’ mental health issues, CNN reported of a recent spat between Alexis and an individual in New Port, Rhode Island on August 7. Alexis told police he believed the individual had sent three people to “follow him and keep him awake by talking to him and sending vibrations into his body” by using “some sort of microwave machine”.