Sports dept to retain its practice pistol during poll period

Ludhiana: The Punjab sports department — after getting an alert from the state police to submit their lone .22 calibre target shooting pistol used in the shooting range — has taken up the matter with police officials, saying they have been exempted by an Election Commission notification from submitting their practice pistol during the election period.
The Punjab sports department coaches held detailed talks with police officials, and clarified that they had all the rights to make use of their practice pistol even during the code of conduct period. It may be mentioned that last year, cops had seized the practice pistol during the municipal elections, citing the election code, affecting the training of local shooters in preparing for national and state-level shooting events.

Last year during the municipal elections, and in 2017 during the state elections, the Punjab sports department had failed to safeguard their practice pistol. Due to this, last year and the year before last, local shooting practice was affected on a large scale, but this time the sports department was not in a mood to submit their practice pistol to the police.

Shooting coach Gurjeet Singh informed that Punjab police officials had contacted them, and asked them to submit their pistol, as the code of conduct was imposed across the nation. But after that, sports department officials and the coaches held a meeting with the police department, and briefed them about the Election Commission notification allowing them to make use of their pistol during election time. This time, the police department too had given an assurance to the sports department that they would not seize their pistol as they did in the previous two years, which had stopped the shooting centre for more than two months.

District sport officer Ravinder Singh told The Times of India: “Learning a lesson from the previous years, this time the sports department will not compromise their shooting practice, and take every required measure to see that the shooting centre runs without any interruption.”

A source in the sports department said: “Due to the seizure of practice pistol last year, local shooters could not perform well in various state or national shooting tournaments, bringing less medals to the state. So to improve the results of the state in medal tallies in the upcoming state and national championships next month, the department has taken up the matter seriously, and did not submit their practice pistol this year, nor does it intend to do so.”