Indian Contractor Vishnu Pandit killed in Washington Navy Yard Shooting

Washington DC: Indian-American Vishnu Pandit  is  among the 13 Fatalities of the Washington Navy Yard Shooting on September 16.

The latest reports suggest that 13 people including the Gunman was killed  after the Gunman started firing at around 8:20 AM local time. The Gunman Aaron Alexis aged 34 was also a Defense Contractor.  The gunman went to an upper floor of  a Building and shot down at people in an atrium, which was near the cafeteria. Most of the victims were military contractors.

The Washington Metropolitan Police released the names of all those who were killed in the shootout, with one of them being an Indian-American — 61-year-old Vishnu Pandit. 

Vishnu Kisan Pandit, a Marine engineer and naval architect had migrated to the US from Mumbai in the mid 70s.

Pandit was born in November 1951 in Bombay. He attended a marine engineering college in Calcutta, then moved to Michigan “in search of a better life for his family,” his family said.

He enrolled at the University of Michigan in 1974, finished his graduate studies and eventually moved to Maryland, where he and his wife raised their two sons.

Pandit was married to Anjali Pandit and has two sons, Siddhesh and Kapil, who are both in their 30s.

A large number of friends and relatives gathered outside the North Potomac home of Vishnu ‘Kisan’ Pandit, as the news spread about his tragic death among the small Indian American community in this Maryland neighbourhood, a suburb of Washington DC.

Sources say he was a regular visitor to the ISKCON temple in Potomac and a member of the Gita Society. The family plans to hold private Hindu last rites for Pandit.

The motive behind the killing is not yet clear.  The Primary Gunman Aaron Alexis was from Queens, New York and Defense Contractor by profession. He was  a Former US Naval Officer, but was discharged from duty in 2011 due to a pattern of misconduct. He was also arrested in 2010 for discharging a weapon within city limits.