NEW DELHI: The national shooting team were on Tuesday detained at New Delhi’s IGI Airport after they refused to clear their guns with the customs, informed Abhinav Bindra, the country's lone individual Olympic gold medallist, on Twitter.
In a series of tweets, Bindra also expressed disappointment with the treatment that ‘countries’ ambassadors’ were given.
He also said that this kind of thing would have never happened with the country's national cricket team.
“Saddened to hear that the National Shooting Team is detained at The IGI Airport with the customs refusing to clear their guns. 1/3 They are our countries ambassadors and should not be treated like this. Would this ever happen to our cricket team 2/3?” he tweeted.
“Chatted with a few athletes and the lack of support coming through from the national federation is pathetic. @RaninderSingh @TheNrai The official team manager of the shotgun team left this morning leaving the athletes to fend for themselves,” he added.
Meanwhile, reacting on the allegations custom department said that delay happened due to coordination with Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI). "We had got an information from DRI officials that team is carrying guns and required a custom clearance, delay caused due to no communication from DRI for hours," a senior officials of customs department deployed at IGI said.
The national shooting team was about to leave for Munich to participate in the World Cup starting May 17.
A dozen of members of shooting team including two Olympian shooters Gurpreet Singh, Kynan Chenai, were 'illegally' detained by custom department at IGI airport on Tuesday. The team members were carrying guns which did not get custom clearance. The team had comeback from an event held in Czech Republic and Doha on Tuesday.
(with inputs from ENS)