NEW DELHI, July 16: Indian photojournalist Danish Siddiqui, a Pulitzer Prize winner, was killed in Afghanistan while on a reporting assignment, Afghan ambassador Farid Mamundzay said on Friday.
A resident of Delhi, Siddiqui was on a reporting assignment with the Afghan security forces when he was killed.
Siddiqui’s father Professor Akhtar Siddiqui told IANS: “I got information about my son about one hour ago. The last time I spoke to my son was two days ago, and he was very happy at that time. ”
Afghanistan’s ambassador to India, Farid Mamundzay, tweeted, “Deeply disturbed by the sad news of the killing of a friend, Danish Seddiqi in Kandahar last night. The Indian Journalist & winner of Pulitzer Prize was embedded with Afghan security forces. I met him 2 weeks ago before his departure to Kabul. Condolences to his family & Reuters.”
Danish Siddiqui was constantly capturing Afghan happenings in his camera, and was informing people through his social media posts.
Two days ago, he tweeted: “The Humvee in which I was travelling with other special forces was also targeted by at least 3 RPG rounds and other weapons. I was lucky to be safe and capture the visual of one of the rockets hitting the armour plate overhead”. He also posted a short video about the action.
Siddiqui was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for his coverage of the Rohingya issue.
He was a student of Jamia University and his father has been a professor at the university.
IANS
