Thirteen members of the national shooting team were detained at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International airport and their weapons taken away on Tuesday. The guns seized by customs was later returned to the shooters.
The Indian shooters were left stranded at the airport on their return from the World Cup in Cyprus. The team, which included the likes of Chain Singh, Gurpreet Singh and Kynan Chenai, had to wait for more than 10 hours before they were allowed to leave with their ammunition.
Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra expressed his anger at the incident on Twitter. The shooter, who retired last year, said, “They are our countries ambassadors (sic) and should not be treated like this. Would this ever happen to our cricket team?”
Tagging Raninder Singh, President of the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI), Bindra complained about the lack of support to the shooters from the federation at the time of the incident. He said that “the official team manager of the shotgun team left this morning, leaving the athletes to fend for themselves”.
Indian shooters Heena Sidhu and Anjali Bhagwat also tweeted about the incident.
(With inputs from ANI and PTI.)
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