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New Delhi/London, May 16 (PTI) Bowing to pressure, the organisers of the ISSF World Cup in Dorset (UK) today apologised to the Indian shooters who were harassed by their transport staff. The Local Organising Committee Chairman Peter Underhill and the person in charge for transport and Accommodation Stephen Minto tendered the apology to the Indian team manager M Padmanabhan during a meeting.
The meeting was also attended by Luciano Rossi, Vice President of the ISSF, Sheikh Salman Alsabah, President of the ASC, India''s Forgin Coach Marcello Dradi and the Indian Shooting team. "We had a long discussion about the incidents happened in the last few days and I expressed my displeasure about the same.
Finally Mr Underhill and Mr Minto tendered apology for these incidents, and I accepted the apology," Padmanabhan wrote in his letter to NRAI Secretary Bhatia. "Now for the betterment of the Shooting Sport and taking consideration the interest of Indian Shooters we have decided to drop this issue," he added.
Padmanabhan yesterday wrote to the Indian High Commission in London, complaining that the shooters were insulted by the transport staff of the event. The Indian High Commission soon got in touch with the organisers while back home, Sports Minister MS Gill convened a meeting of the Ministry officials, asking them to get in touch with NRAI and the Indian High Commission for details of the incident.
The issue threatened to spill into diplomatic domain as Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur also took strong view of the incident, calling it "unfortunate". According to Padmanabhan''s complaint, the incident took place on Friday when the Indian shooters were boarding the bus that took them from venue to their hotel.
The bus driver slammed the door on some shooters and left them at the range. Some of the Indian shooters, who were on board, protested the incident and were insulted by the transport supervisor.
Two days back, two Indian lady shooters had been asked to get down from a bus, Padmanabhan alleged. Initially, the organisers tried to shift the blame to the Indian shooters, alleging they had misbehaved with the transport staff.
Event manager Tom Wehnham alleged the Indian marksmen had abused a lady driver. Commonwealth Games gold medallist marksman Manavjit Singh Sandhu, part of the Indian team in the event, dismissed the allegation and said the Indian shooters have never been accused of misbehaving ever.
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