KARACHI: One of the elite athletes of the country and Olympian Gulfam Joseph has gone missing in Germany after participating in the ISSF World Cup Rifle/Pistol.
He showed excellent performance in the individual category of 10m Air Pistol event in the first days of the event by qualifying to the finals though he could not win any medal in the finals. He was then supposed to play the mixed team category with Kishmala Talat in the 10m Air Pistol event on the last day of the world cup (Saturday) but he did not turn up for the competition.
“He left to meet his relatives in some other city one day before his last competition,” said Secretary National Rifle Association of Pakistan Razi Ahmed when contacted. He said this is a normal practice that athletes and players usually go meet their friends and relatives when they participate in foreign competitions that’s why the officials of the national contingent did not suspect him.
But, he added, he did not turn up for the last day event which was quite strange and since then he is missing though our officials tried to contact him repeatedly but to no avail. “The national contingent is to come back on Tuesday night but we have not been able to locate Gulfam and he is still out of reach,” said Razi, adding that this was quite unfortunate that he disappeared.
Secretary NRAP said that Gulfam is the country’s top shooter and he has all sorts of facilities available to him in Pakistan, therefore, his disappearance is quite shocking to us. “We are hopeful that he would contact us soon and he returns to Pakistan,” said Razi. Meanwhile, a member of the national shooting contingent told this scribe that Gulfam was not responding to his messages as well.
“Some of the members of the contingent returned to Pakistan few days ago after playing their events. Gulfam’s event was the last completion of the world cup. “I tried to contact him when I came to know about his disappearance but he has not responded to my messages yet,” said the contingent member.
It is pertinent to mention here that Pakistan’s 11 shooters and three officials went to participate in the ISSF World Cup Rifle/Pistol held from May 24-31 in Munich, Germany. The officials were Vladimir Kovalenko (Pistol Coach), Shah Nawaz (Pistol Coach), and Nadia Saeed (Rifle Coach) while the players included Ghulam Mustafa Bashir, Sulaiman Khan, Gulfam Joseph, Maqbool Hussain Tabbasum, Aqib Latif, Ghufran Adil, M Uzman, M Umer Farooq, Kishmala Talat, Rabia Kabir, and Mehr Khaliq.
