Every year the government announces civil awards for individuals in many fields and sports is one of them. These civil awards are given in recognition of their services and excellence.

This year, the President announced the conferment of such awards for 104 Pakistanis and foreigners which will be presented to them on Pakistan Day next year.

In the field of sports, the Hilal-i-Imtiaz has been announced for Arshad Nadeem for winning gold medal in the Paris Olympics and Sitara-i-Imtiaz has been announced for climber Murad Sadpara.

World Amateur Squash Champion Maqsood Ahmed will get the Tamgha-i-Imtiaz along with Amad Shakeel Butt, Rehman Ishtiaq, and Mir Nadir Khan Magsi while Amir Ishfaq will get the Pride of Performance award.

The national or civil awards conferred on sports athletes for their performance include Hilal-i-Imtiaz, Sitara-i-Imtiaz, Pride of Performance, Tamgha-i-Imtiaz, and Tamgha-i-Quaid-i-Azam.

So far, more than 200 awards have been conferred in the fields of Athletics, Ballooning, Bridge, Boxing, Cricket, Football, Golf, Hockey, Jockey, Kabaddi, Karate, Mountaineering, Polo, Rowing, Sailing/Yachting, Ski, Hiking, Snooker, Squash, Swimming, Table Tennis, Taekwondo, Tennis, Ultralight Aircraft Pilot Sports, Weightlifting, and Wrestling.

Interestingly, shooting has yet to get any civil or national award. This is strange considering the fact that this is the only sport whose athletes have been regularly getting entries into top world events including Olympics.

Though the performance of national shooters has not been outstanding in the previous years, the controversial conferring of national or civil awards on the athletes of many other sports in Pakistan is what makes shooting deliberately neglected in this regard.

For example, Pakistan’s top shooter Ghulam Mustafa Bashir has won 61 gold, 32 silver and nine bronze medals in 10 years of his career.

He has also made 19 national records since the start of his career in 2010 while he has become the only shooter from Pakistan to win any medal (bronze) at the World Championships.

He also showed his mettle in the South Asian Games in 2016 and 2019 by winning one gold, six silver and one bronze medals. Also, he is the second shooter from Pakistan to participate in three editions of the Olympics Games (2016, 2020, 2024).

“I spotted him when he started shooting at the PN Shooting Range at Karsaz and told him that he would be a great shooter one day,” says Secretary National Rifle Association of Pakistan Razi Ahmed.

He adds that Bashir was so promising a shooter that he won a gold medal just after two years at a national championship. Bashir created history when he won a bronze medal at ISSF World Championship in Egypt and a quota place for Paris Olympics 2024.

His excellent performance at the said championship helped him achieve his career-best world ranking of 7 in 25m Rapid Fire Pistol event. This was the reason he was invited to participate in the prestigious ISSF Presidents Cup in Cairo, Egypt.

But he has never been considered for any civil award. A former shooter says this is really unfortunate. He says he would not like to point fingers at the conferring of national or civil awards to athletes of other sports since everybody knows how they are awarded on various considerations.

But he feels that shooters Bashir, Gulfam Joseph, Kishmala Talat and Khalil Akhtar have genuine reasons to get national awards on the basis of their performances.

Surprisingly, the NRAP never approached the concerned authorities for awards to national shooters because they feel that national shooters have not done enough yet despite performing quite well at Asian level in different international events.

The NRAP considers that only winning medals or performing outstandingly at Olympics level should be the reason for national shooters to get consideration for any national civil awards.

Leaving aside what NRAP feels, I think the national sports regulators should consider shooters for civil awards in order to encourage them to achieve excellence because the shooting sport has no role models yet to make it a popular sport in the country.