NEW DELHI: Danish Siddiqui, the slain photojournalist who breathed his last in Afghanistan last year, is among four Indians honoured with the prestigious Pulitzer Prize 2022 for the feature photography category. Siddiqui and his colleagues from news agency Reuters – Adnan Abidi, Sanna Irshad Mattoo and Amit Dave – won the award announced on Monday, for “images of Covid’s toll in India that balanced intimacy and devastation, while offering viewers a heightened sense of place”, according to The Pulitzer Prizes website.
Their work was moved from the breaking news photography category by the judges. Thirty-eight-year-old Siddiqui, an award-winning journalist, was on assignment covering the clashes between Afghan troops and the Taliban during the latter’s offensive in Afghanistan. He was killed in Spin Boldak district of Kandahar city.
This is for the second time that Siddiqui has won the Pulitzer Prize. He was honoured with the prestigious award in 2018 as part of the Reuters team for their coverage of the Rohingya crisis. He had extensively covered the Afghanistan conflict, the Hong Kong protests and other major events in Asia, Middle East, and Europe.
Father remembers Siddiqui
Brave, empathetic against the pain in the world, yet professional about his and his family’s safety -- this is how Danish Siddiqui’s father remembered him, the day he won his second Pulitzer prize. “We feel proud of him but we miss him,” said Akhtar Siddiqui, father of photojournalist Danish Siddiqui, who was killed while covering a conflict in Afghanistan last year.
“He went around the country, in the hospitals, in the Covid-19 wards, mortuaries, graveyards. He overworked during those days. His view was to show how the people were suffering and to let the world know about it so that we could collectively help people come out of this great disaster,” he said.
“He took the risk at the cost of his personal health and his family. Nothing deterred him from discharging his duties,” he said. Akhtar Siddiqui said that his son was however, very cautious, about ensuring the safety of his two small children and his aged parents.