ISSF World Championship: Gold rush continues for juniors, Gurpreet adds senior silver
CHANGWON Sep 14 : Gurpreet Singh clinched a silver in the senior men’s standard pistol but India’s junior shooters continued to hold centre-stage, snaring two gold medals to steer the country to its best-ever finish in the ISSF World Championships in Changwon on Friday.
Vijayveer Sidhu, 16, shot a gold in the 25m standard pistol event for junior men after combining with Rajkanwar Singh Sandhu and Adarsh Singh to claim the team gold on the last day of the prestigious International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) competition.
India signed off third in the overall medals tally with 11 gold, nine silver and seven bronze medals for a total of 27, making this their best performance in the showpiece.
Sidhu, who finished fourth in the 25m pistol Thursday, managed an individual score of 572 to finish ahead of Korean Lee Gunheyok (570) and China’s Haojie Zhu 565).
In the team competition, Sidhu, Sandhu (564) and Singh (559) totalled 1695 to fetch the top honours with Korea (1693) and Czech Republic (1674) settling for the silver and the bronze medals respectively.
Singh managed a fourth-place finish in the individual competition.
In the senior competition, Gurpreet Singh ensured that the contingent signed off on a positive note with his silver.
The former Commonwealth Games gold-medallist fired a score of 579 to finish second behind Ukraine’s Pavlo Korostylov, who shot a score of 581. The bronze medal went to Koreas Kim Junhong, who shot the same score as the Indian but had lesser inner-10s to his credit.
India ended fourth in the team event with Gurpreet, Amanpreet Singh (560) and London Olympics silver-medallist Vijay Kumar (560) combining for a score of 1699.
India’s junior women’s skeet team finished a creditable fourth with the trio of Simranpreet Kaur, Parinaaz Dhaliwal and Areeba Khan totalling 318. None of them managed to qualify for the individual finals.
In the men’s skeet event, Angad Vir Singh Bajwa shot 118 to finish 49th, followed by Sheeraz Sheikh (115) at 69th. Mairaj Ahmad Khan shot 113 to finish 77th. The team finished 20th.
In the men’s 300M rifle 3 positions Parul Kumar (1134) was the best-placed Indian at 24th, while Amit Kumar shot 1124 to finish 28th. Akash Ravidas was further down at at 35th with a score of shot 1077. The team finished 8th with 3335 points.
The country has managed to clinch two Olympic quota places from the first qualifying event for Tokyo 2020 Games.
Anjum Moudgil and Apurvi Chandela are shooters to secure quota places for the Olympics by winning a silver and finishing fourth respectively in the women’s 10m air rifle event.
Though the two shooters have secured quotas, as per the stated policy, the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) will take the final call on selection, based on the aggregate scores of shooters (in international tournaments and selection trials) leading up to the Olympic Games.
With the Youth Olympic Games scheduled for October, the World Championship concludes ISSF’s engagements for the year.
The next big event will come up in February next year with the first World Cup stage, which will also be a Tokyo 2020 qualifying event, to be held in New Delhi’s Dr. Karni Singh range.
Courtesy: thehindu.com
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Four cops suspended after man escapes from custody, gets hit by truck in Ghaziabad
Ghaziabad (UP) (PTI): The Ghaziabad Police has suspended four personnel over presumed negligence and dereliction of duty after a detainee suffered severe injuries while allegedly fleeing from custody, a police official said on Friday.
Assistant Commissioner of Police (Modinagar) Bhaskar Verma said one Amit Kumar (35), an outsourced employee at Patla Nagar Panchayat, was allegedly drinking alcohol with three of his friends at a public place on Tuesday night. When Niwari police station arrived and reprimanded them, an altercation ensued, and Amit was subsequently detained.
While police were taking him for medical examination at Community Health Centre Muradnagar, Amit reportedly jumped from the moving police vehicle near the health centre to escape. As he ran towards the Delhi-Meerut highway, he was hit by an oncoming truck and sustained severe injuries. He was rushed to Yashoda Hospital in Nehru Nagar, where he is currently undergoing treatment in the ICU.
The police personnel allegedly failed to report the truck accident to their senior officers initially, claiming instead that Amit had fallen and injured himself while attempting to flee.
The incident sparked outrage among locals and the family of the detainee, who alleged that Amit was brutally thrashed while in custody.
On Thursday, protesters gathered outside the Niwari police station for nearly an hour, raising slogans against the police. The situation was eventually brought under control after officials assured that stringent action would be taken.
In response, a delegation of Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) leaders met Police Commissioner J Ravindra Goud to submit a formal complaint demanding accountability for the Niwari police station personnel.
On Thursday evening, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Rural) Surendra Nath Tiwari issued the suspension order against Patla police outpost in-charge Sub-Inspector Lokendra, Sub-Inspector Shaid Khan, Head Constable Sachin Mohan and Constable Narendra.
Additionally, the role of Niwari Station House Officer KK Maurya is under investigation, and a departmental inquiry has been initiated against the errant personnel, Verma said.
