SRINAGAR — Danish Siddiqui, an Indian photojournalist, was killed on Friday while documenting a confrontation between Afghan security forces and Taliban combatants in Kandahar’s Spin Boldak region. He was embedded with the Afghan Special Forces on a reporting assignment.
Condoling Danish Siddiqui’s demise, Farid Mamundzay, the Afghanistan’s Ambassador to India, 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, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, began his career as a television news correspondent before deciding to pursue a career in photojournalism. From September 2008 until January 2010, he worked as a correspondent for the India Today Group and as a photojournalist for the international news agency Reuters.
Photojournalist Danish Siddiqui and his colleague Adnan Abidi received the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography in 2018 for their work as part of the Reuters team chronicling the Rohingya Refugee Crisis.
Siddiqui was a photojournalist who covered a wide variety of issues all around the world. His significant works include coverage of the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts, the Rohingya refugee crisis, Hong Kong demonstrations, and the earthquakes in Nepal.
He has been reporting on the situation in Kandahar, Afghanistan, for the past few days, as tensions in the region have risen. In a tweet, he revealed that he had accompanied the Afghan Special Forces on a few missions. When the Afghan Special Forces were attacked by the Taliban, he reportedly died.
On June 13, he had reported that the vehicle he and other special forces were travelling in was targeted with 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 had said in of his tweets.
His most recent report was about Afghan troops attempting to rescue a wounded police officer held captive by Taliban fighters on the outskirts of Kandahar.
