DON’T JUDGE NISHAL

NO ONE can ever know fully the kind of emotional and mental stress aviation student Nishal Sankat was going through when he boarded an aircraft at an airport in the United States last month. For this he was charged with attempting to steal the aircraft and appeared before a US judge.

Sankat, the son of retired UWI, St Augustine campus principal Professor Clement Sankat is expected to be deported from the United States and flown home today. Yesterday, a psychiatrist/clinical therapist and a traumatologist both called for the country not to judge Nishal, but instead allow the young man to heal so he can be reintegrated into society.

Clinical Therapist and Traumatologist Hanif E. A. Benjamin, the chairman of the Children’s Authority and Psychiatrist Dr Varma Deyalsingh both said Sankat, who the US judge heard was depressed, requires understanding and support.

This support is crucial, both men said, given the fact that Nishal is returning home to a society that is quick to judge and quick to use social media to air its feeling against those deemed different or abnormal.

Commenting on the unkindness of the memes which have already gone viral on social media since news broke of the past Hillview College student’s action and arrest, both Benjamin and Deyalsingh said people must understand that mental illness is real and can affect anyone at anytime.

“This is an illness. If you suffer from diabetes or high blood pressure people would not judge you. Similarly, people should not judge a person with depression. We have to understand it, to treat it and be educated on it,” Deyalsingh said.

“Based on all the reports, young Sankat requires some form of clinical assessment and intervention. Mental health affects the entire social environment including family, parents...everybody. We want people to respect that and give him and his family all the support and help they need,” Benjamin said in a separate interview.

“We need to be forgiving, we need to be tolerant and need to provide support for people with mental health,” he said adding that those quick to judge and quick to laugh at and poke fun, can very easily fall into the same mental stress that Nishal was going through.

What is frightening, Benjamin said, is that Sankat is only one out of thousands living with depression in TT.

“We need to get our young people screened because of the pressure they face as it relates to academia.

“We are not asking enough questions from our young people to get them help,” Benjamin said.

October is the month when mental health is commemorated worldwide and as a strong advocate for putting the issue on the front burner, Benjamin said, “We need to get our heads out of the sun when it comes to mental health, it is time to put mental health on the same platform as physical health.

In Sankat’s case, Deyalsingh said, the one positive thing is that he would have family support. The challenge lies, Deyalsingh said, in dealing with the emotions on having your career which you spent a lot of time working towards, along with future prospects for long term job satisfaction, taken away from you.

Because of the deportation order, Sankat will have his pilot’s licence revoked and will be placed on the US’ ‘no-fly’ list which means he would be debarred from ever entering that country again. The psychiatrist believes mental stress and not criminal intent caused Nishal to act out.

National Security Minister Stuart Young said the Immigration Division and the police will be on standby today to receive Nishal Sankat when he is handed over by US Marshals once the flight lands at Piarco International Airport.

Young said he was contacted by the US authorities on Monday and informed of Sankat’s deportation. “All arms of our law enforcement which deal with returning deportees have been notified and are prepared to receive Sankat,” Young said.

The deportation is part of a plea deal after Sankat, 22, pleaded guilty to burglary of a conveyance in a court appearance on Monday. Charges of trespass and grand theft were dropped.