Appoint captain for foreign tours, panel tells NRAI

The probe committee of the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) has recommened that a captain should be appointed for all international tournaments, who would keep a tab on the shooters' activities on tours.
The NRAI today handed two shooters one-year and six-month bans respectively even though they were absolved of charges of sexual harassment.
A woman shooter, selected to participate for a trap event in international junior shooting competition at Suhl, Germany last month, had complained to the NRAI alleging sexual and derogatory comments by two of her team members.
A six-member committee headed by ace shooter Anjali Bhagwat, was then constituted to probe the allegations.

"Whenever the Indian Shooting Team is travelling abroad there should be one Captain nominated. The athletes can address their issues if any to the Captain," the committee said in its report.
"The Manager as well as the coaches accompanying the team should be more proactive in addressing issues relating to discipline. They should ensure that no action of the team members in any way reflects the behavior, which is in any way an embarrassment to the nation," it further said.

The probe committee also recommended that women officials should accompany the team if girls are part of the events.
"We also recommend that whenever there are girl shooters in such Junior International events, a woman coach or official should also be invariably included in the squad to avoid such incidents in future."

Though in this case, there were two women official/ coach with the rifle-pistol team that was part of the Indian squad.
While concluding that the coaches and officials accompanying the shotgun team were incapable of handling disciplinary issues, the committee said that the athletes committe of the NRAI should educate the shooters.
"The athletes commission with the support of the NRAI will start in each section of the national squad a compulsory workshop aimed at educating athletes of their roles as ambassadors of India while representation the country."
The panel also asked the NRAI to take strong action against four shooters who did not report for inquiry nor respond to the e-mail from NRAI.