Pulitzer-winning Indian photojournalist Danish Siddiqui killed by Taliban in Afghanistan

Spin Boldak (Afghanistan)/Bhubaneswar: Pulitzer-winning Indian journalist and Reuters Chief Photographer Danish Siddiqui was on Friday killed while covering clashes between Afghna security forces and Taliban militants near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Siddiqui and a senior Afghan officer were killed in a market area of Spin Boldak where Afghan special forces had been fighting against the Taliban, reports Reuters.

Siddiqui had been accompanying the Afghan special forces for nearly a week in the southern province of Kandahar and had been reporting on the clashes between Afghan commandos and Taliban forces.

“We are urgently seeking more information, working with authorities in the region,” Reuters President Michael Friedenberg and Editor-in-Chief Alessandra Galloni said in a statement.

“Danish was an outstanding journalist, a devoted husband and father, and a much-loved colleague. Our thoughts are with his family at this terrible time.”

Siddiqui had been tweeting about his reportage and had told Reuters that he had been wounded after catching shrapnel on his arm earlier on Friday. His wounds were treated when Taliban fighters had retreated from Spin Boldak.

However, the Taliban attacked again when Siddiqui was talking to shopkeepers in the area, an Afghan commander said.

An accomplished photographer, Siddiqui was part of the Reuters team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography in 2018 for documenting the Rohingya refugee crisis.

Siddiqui had extensively covered socio-political issues in the Indian subcontinent and in the Middle East. Working with Reuters since 2010, he had covered wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Hong Kong protests, the Nepal earthquakes, and the Covid-19 crisis as well.