Acting US Attorney Michael Sherwin has asked the DC Superior Court to order the mental examination of Jawaid Bhutto’s attacker – Hilman Jordan -“by one or more psychiatrist.”
Sherwin, who conducts prosecution of all federal crimes and serious local crimes moved the motion in Judge Dana Dayson’s court on July 6, for productivity and criminal responsibility exam of Jordan, who is accused of the murder.
However, the defendant for the accused, Dana Page opposed the motion. In her rejoinder on July 8, Page submitted that the prosecution had failed to provide materials relating to Jordan’s mental health at the time he attacked Jawaid.
According to the defense, they have been requesting materials from the prosecution that would support their contention that Jordan was suffering from a mental illness at the time he attacked Jawaid. Page submitted that is intended to bolster the defense argument that Jordan should be considered `Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity.’
In 1998, Jordan murdered his cousin and pleaded insanity – as a result of which he never went to prison. Subsequently, the District of Columbia sent him for treatment to St. Elizabeth Psychiatric Hospital – and then paid for his `convalescent leave’ to rent the condo below Jawaid Bhutto’s apartment.
Under DC law, it is legal to dump insane criminals – like Hilman Jordan – in communities without informing neighbors about their background, In the case of Jordan, DC has been forced to admit that it failed to monitor him for rampant drug abuse, including failing to sent him back to St. Elizabeth – in flagrant violation of court orders
Judge Dana Dayson will rule on the prosecution and defense arguments in the state’s criminal case against the accused.
Over 5,000 people tweeted in support of Jawaid Bhutto on June 27 from 10 am to 12 pm to demand that DC stop secretly dumping criminals from St. Elizabeth Psychiatric Hospital into residential settings.
The Twitter trend logged sixth in Pakistan, which was lit up on other issues of concern inside the country like China India conflict petrol, electricity and governance. Justice4JB trended as a purely human rights issue with people demanding answers from the US judicial system.
As evening fell in Pakistan, people in the US awoke and began tweeting in support of JB. They linked the tweets to the DC Council and to the US and Pakistan embassies, drawing attention to a broken system that endangers the lives of good, hardworking people that come to this country
This is only the first in the beginning of a campaign, in which we have sued Washington DC for depriving us of our beloved philosopher and humanist Jawaid Bhutto. A deeply knowledgeable philosopher, Jawaid had blossomed to enlighten the world – before a madman took his life. We believe there are many crazy criminals who prey on the lives of innocent citizens. Therefore for us, the real insanity is in the system. We honor Jawaid’s relentless struggle for the poor and oppressed and will work to ensure that justice is served.
In the picture, Nafisa Hoodbhoy and Javed Bhutto are radiant. They’re wearing pale pastels and unreserved smiles, sitting among friends in Karachi, Pakistan. It was 1993 and they were recently married. “We were very much in love,” she says.
D.C.’s mental health agency was asked to speak to several concerning incidents during a Council oversight hearing Wednesday night, including why the city’s sole public psychiatric hospital went without clean water for a month, and what systems are in place to prevent that from happening again. But the head of the agency could not provide satisfactory answers, as the department is still reviewing what exactly happened in September. Continue reading “Mental Health Agency Director Finally Answers…. (Nov 21, 2019) Washington City Paper, By Amanda Michelle Gomez”
JAVED BHUTTO was shot and killed March 1 as he unloaded groceries from the trunk of his car in the parking lot of his condo complex in Southeast Washington. His alleged killer was his neighbor, a man who had killed someone else in another unprovoked shooting but had been found not guilty by reason of insanity, and was released after 17 years of treatment at St. Elizabeths Hospital. He had been deemed safe to be released to the community, and he was supposed to have been closely monitored. Continue reading “D.C. must provide answers on the unprovoked killing of Javed Bhutto”
A recent murder has raised a number of broader deeper issues regarding the insanity defense and the danger that those found to be insane pose to society.
India’s recent decision to revoke the special status of Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir, a Muslim-majority state, has some experts concerned that the action could raise the stakes for militancy among several active terror groups in the region.
The presidential order to revoke Article 370 of the Indian constitution, ending Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomy in administrative matters, was preceded by massive troop movement and a lockdown in the state. Internet, cellphones and landline telephones reportedly were cut off.
“Indian Kashmir has been a very volatile region for a very long time,” said Ajai Sahni, a New Delhi-based political analyst at the Indian Institute for Conflict Management.
India has resorted to an “essentially repressive arrangement, in which the resistance will not go away,” Sahni told VOA.
Sahni said Indian authorities have so far managed to prevent any significant terror incident or backlash as a result of the recent move.
FILE – Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, right, chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawwa and founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba, addresses a news conference with anti-American cleric Sami ul Haq in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, April 4, 2012.
Militant groups
Several terror and militant groups operate in Jammu and Kashmir, including Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba. The latter has two other front organizations — Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and Falah-e-Insaniyat (FIF) — both of which allegedly collect charities under the pretext of helping the poor but instead fund the Kashmir cause.
LeT, JuD and FIF are led by Hafez Saeed, a U.S.-designated global terrorist who was allegedly the mastermind of Mumbai’s 2008 terror attacks in which 166 people were killed, including six Americans.
Some of these groups, like the LeT, are alleged to have links to Pakistan’s military and receive its support. Pakistan, however, denies supporting militant groups inside Kashmir.
Tauqir Gilani, chief of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), a Pakistan-based political party that believes in the unification of Kashmiris, said the situation is a cause for concern in the region and could be exploited by Pakistan.
“The situation is so volatile that Pakistan can easily exploit it and use Kashmiris as cannon fodder,” Gilani said. “Thousands of people have moved to the cease-fire line from Pakistan’s side, knowing that it is a case of now or never.”
Sahni downplayed the threat and maintains that “India’s intelligence agencies are well-aware of Pakistan’s backing of terrorist groups, and the Jammu and Kashmir police are equipped to handle the situation.”
“The international pressure has shifted in favor of stopping Pakistani support for terrorism. That has increased India’s expectations that Pakistan will not support militants in Kashmir,” he added.
Supporters of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party light firecrackers and celebrate the government revoking Kashmir’s special status, in Lucknow, India, Aug. 6, 2019.
Demographic change
India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) returned to power earlier this year with a pledge to revoke Article 370.
The BJP, which allegedly has a nationalist Hindu base, also removed Article 35A — paving the way for non-Kashmiris to buy property inside Kashmir, which some analysts believe is a move to change the local demographics and undermine the Muslim-majority status of the region. The legislation gave the Jammu and Kashmir state legislature the power to define the term “permanent resident,” and provide those residents with special rights and privileges.
Mehbooba Mufti, a former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir who has reportedly been under house arrest since protesting against the Indian government’s move, agreed, saying India wants to change the local demographics.
“They just want to occupy our land and want to make this Muslim-majority state like any other state, and reduce us to a minority and disempower us totally,” she told the BBC.
Sahni does not deny that India’s move will change the state’s demographics, but he argued that Pakistan has done the same thing on its side of Kashmir in the past.
“The Kashmiri movement (local resistance) is not sustainable, because Pakistan has already undertaken the demographic re-engineering of Gilgit-Baltistan,” Sahni said, referring to how Pakistan had settled non-Kashmiris in the Kashmiri territory.
Kashmir
Claims over Kashmir
Kashmir has been a disputed territory between India and Pakistan since 1947, when Muslim-majority Pakistan was partitioned from predominantly Hindu India, and British rule ended in the region.
Both nuclear nations have fought two major wars over Kashmir, which they each claim as an integral part of their territories.
In recent days, Indian politicians reiterated their long-standing position that their claim over Kashmir includes Pakistan-administered Kashmir, as well as the Chinese-administered Kashmiri territory of Aksai Chin.
IS and al-Qaida
There are fears that the indigenous Kashmiri groups operating within Indian-administered Kashmir could build ties with transnational terror groups like Islamic State and al-Qaida.
Malik Nadeem Abid, the New York-based executive director of Kashmir Mission USA, charges that Kashmiri groups are aware of Islamist extremists’ attempts to take over their movement.
“We have our eyes open to prevent infiltration of the Kashmiri cause by pro-Islamist groups like Islamic State and al-Qaida,” he told VOA. “Our movement is 100% indigenous and in the hands of nationalist Kashmiri leaders.”
Communication lines in Jammu and Kashmir have reportedly been cut off since India revoked the state’s special status, leaving local residents unable to communicate with the outside world.
Yusuf Jameel, a VOA reporter in Indian-administered Srinagar, described the situation as uncertain and volatile, which is forcing many people to leave.
“There is an extraordinary level of fear and apprehension among locals. Hundreds of Indian citizens and pilgrims, local workers, craftsmen and traders are leaving the valley,” he said.
Sindhi Association of North America has concluded its 35th convention in Toronto with the announcement of the Jawaid Bhutto scholarship for students in Pakistan.
SANA also resolved in favor of naming Jawaid’s former department at Sindh University the `Jawaid Bhutto Department of Philosophy.’ Moreover, participants extended support to a future Institute of Philosophy and Social Sciences to be created in Jawaid’s name at Sindh University, Jamshoro. Continue reading “SANA Announces Jawaid Bhutto Scholarship”
Glowing tributes were paid on June 15 to Jawaid Bhutto for his work as a mental health counselor at Welford Street Community Residences Inc. in Virginia.
