The shooting sport in Pakistan took birth in the country when in 1948 the founder of Pakistan M Ali Jinnah inaugurated the Federal Rifle Club.

In 1990, the first international shooting club was founded by the Pakistan Navy in Karachi and this club has so far produced 3 Olympians for the country.

Pakistan has produced a number of good shooters over the years in pistol and rifle categories as evident from the participation in the Olympics. But shotgun shooting never became popular.

Azam Jan was the first shooter from Pakistan to participate in the Olympics when he took part in the Rifle Prone category in the 1952 Olympics.

In the 1956 Olympics, M Zafar featured in 3-position Rifle, Rifle Prone, and Free Pistol events while Saifi Chauhdry participated in the Free Rifle event.

In the 1960 Olympics, Saifi Chauhdry took part in 3-position rifle and rifle prone events, Abdul Wain featured in free rifle event, Zafar Ahmad participated in the free pistol event, and M Iqbal participated in the rapid fire pistol event.

It was the 2000 Olympics when the first shotgun shooter from Pakistan participated in the event - Khurrum Inam.

He again participated in Skeet events in both 2004 and 2012 Olympics. In the 2008 Olympics Siddique Umer featured in 3-position rifle and air rifle events.

In 2016 and 2020 Olympics, once again rifle and pistol shooters took the lead when G M Bashir and Khalil Akthar featured in rapid fire pistol events and Minhal Suhail and Gulfam Joseph took part in air rifle and air pistol events, respectively.

In the Paris 2024 Olympics, three shooters qualified and all of them were pistol shooters. So only one shotgun shooter managed to participate in the Olympics against rifle and pistol shooters.

Interestingly, Pakistan’s shotgun shooters have been performing quite well at national level but their performance has been quite disappointing at international level.

Army’s young shooter Imam Haroon made a new national record and won gold medal in skeet event in the national shooting championship but he got 114th position in the qualification round of Skeet event at a World championship the same year in Baku (2023).

Usman Chand from Army, who has been national champion in Skeet event for the past many years, won silver medal in the same national championship but at international level he is ranked 149 and he has been participating in international events since 2013.

The other notable shooters in this category include Khurrum Inam, Farrukh Nadeem, Aamir Iqbal, Shameil Khan, Zafar-ul-Haq, Abdul Sattar, and Usman Sadiq but their performances have always been poor in international events.

However, they have done better in Asian Games according to the Asian Shooting Confederation’s record for shotgun events from 1954 to 2018.

The data show that in the 2006 edition of the ASG in Qatar Amin Karamat got 7th position with 121 points in skeet event and he was the only Pakistani shooter to finish among top eight shooters at the Asian Games.

After 12 years, Pakistani shooters bettered this record as two shooters finished among top eight in this shotgun category. In the 2018 edition of ASG, Aamer Iqbal achieved 8th position with 134 points in the double trap event and Usman Chand finished fifth with 143 points in skeet event.

In 2023 ASG, Usman Chand secured 12th position with the score of 118 points, Usman Sadiq took 22nd position with the score of 114 points, and Imam Haroon secured 35th position with the score of 105 points.

National Rifle Association of Pakistan also feels satisfied with the performance of shotgun shooters in Asian Games, which is considered to be the toughest competition due to participation of almost all top shooters in the world who belong to this region.

According to a seasoned shotgun shooter there are various reasons for lack of good shotgun shooters in the country.

The biggest issue is that this version of shooting is very expensive and only the affluent can afford to play it.

For example, one shotgun shooter needs at least ammunition worth over 1 million rupees just to practice for one year and it becomes quite problematic most of the time as ammunition is imported from various countries.

Though there is a local production of ammunition as well, it lacks in quality. Yet even local ammunition was not available for the past few years as Wah Industries stopped production due to plant closure.

The prices of different ammunition clearly show the difference between the shotgun shooting and pistol shooting.

According to rough estimates, one pellet for air rifle/pistol shooting is just about Rs 5 and one bullet is about Rs 25 for pistol and rifle. On the other hand, the price of one shotgun shell is around Rs 120 and with a target bird it comes to Rs 132.

But NRAP believes that lack of self-confidence is the main reason we don’t have good shotgun shooters in Pakistan.

“No doubt it’s a very expensive sport and mostly industrialists play this in the country, especially in Sindh, but I think lack of confidence is conducive to a shortage of good shotgun shooters in the country,” said Secretary NRAP Razi Ahmed.

He reasoned that expenses are no issue for armed forces so it is only lack of confidence and mental strength that don’t let forces produce great shotgun shooters.

“This sport is played by princes and royal families in the Arab world and this is the reason they have produced great shotgun shooters in the world,” said Razi.