Visa glitches for India’s full bore shooting team

NEW DELHI - India’s full bore shooters, who have been practising with borrowed rifles, suffered a serious set-back Tuesday after their selection-cum-practice tour to England for the Oct 3-14 Commonwealth Games was delayed due to visa problems.

The seven member team, including coach C.S. Dhillon, was supposed to leave for London Tuesday but the trip was delayed by a week after the British High Commission granted visa to all but three members of the contingent.

Dhillon told IANS that he and shooters Amit Khanna and Sushil Ghale were given visas, but the other four shooters didn’t get their visas on time forcing the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) to postpone the tour till Sep 8.

“We had applied for visas well in advance, but the High Commission granted visas to three, who have been to Europe before. So there was no point in going for the tour with just two shooters,” said Dhillon.

The team was scheduled to practise at Bisley in Surrey. Bisley is the home of Britain’s National Rifle Association.

The full bore team has been in the news as they participated in the Commonwealth Shooting Championship earlier this year with borrowed rifles, despite the fact that Rs.25 crore (Rs.250 million) has been spent on the Kadarpur Shooting Range.

Dhillon said the shooters are still waiting for their rifles and in England they will get the delivery of the four custom-made rifles made by HPS Target Rifles.

“We have been using borrowed rifles till now and once we reach Bisley, our team will get the delivery of the four custom-made rifles. We will have to test our rifles since the shooters will be using these equipment in the Commonwealth Games,” he said.

Dhillon said that the six shooters will train in Bisley for a week following which only two shooters will be selected for the Games.

“We had no choice but to postpone our trip. The camp will now be held Sep 9-15. In Bisley, our shooters will have a comprehensive training in the 1000 yards events. This tour is very important for us because in India we don’t have training facilities for the 1000 yards event,” he said.

“The 1000 yards is the most prestigious event in full bore shooting and it is called as the Queen’s Message event. For the first time we are participating in this event where we have a strong chance of winning a medal. When we thought of participating in the event, there were objections and even Commonwealth Games Shooting Federation chief Graeme Hudson was not convinced. But during the trials at the CRPF Kadarpur Shooting range, our shooters proved that they are medal hopes in big bore,” Dhillon said.