Amid the increasingly tense situation in Afghanistan where Taliban is taking control over provinces and border, a Pulitzer-winning Indian photojournalist Danish Siddique was killed on duty in Kandahar. The renowned photojournalist, who worked as Reuters India’s Chief Photographer was killed while he was capturing visuals in the war-torn Afghanistan.

Contents hide
1. Details
2. The Last Series of Pictures by Danish
3. “Could feel the tension in the air”
4. “Was Lucky to be Safe”: Danish, Days before his Death
5. Danish’s First Pulitzer Prize, His Work in India

Details

Reuters India’s Chief Photographer and Pulitzer award winning Indian photojournalist was slain in Kandahar while reporting the ongoing clashes between the Afghani forces and the Taliban.

He was under the protection of the Afghan Special Forces and was given the task to report on the current operations Afghan forces have undertaken to push back against the Taliban.

The news was confirmed by Farid Mamundzay, who serves as Afghanistan’s ambassador to India. Farid took to Twitter and wrote, “Deeply disturbed by the sad news of the killing of a friend, Danish Siddique 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.”

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The Last Series of Pictures by Danish

The talented photojournalist was sent to the war-torn landlocked region to assist Reuters overall coverage after the US pulled out its troops and Taliban once again started taking control of the provinces and borders.

Danish had taken to Twitter very recently and had penned a gut-wrenching witness account of the ongoing clashes between the Taliban militants and the Afghani forces in the border provinces of the country. The report was titled, “Responding to SOS, Afghan commandos caught in fierce Taliban attack” and it gave a first-person account of what all Danish witnessed as part of the Afghanistan military convoy. The military convoy was passing through the Kandahar region.

“Afghan Special Forces, the elite fighters are on various frontlines across the country. I tagged along with these young men for some missions. Here is what happened in Kandahar today while they were on a rescue mission after spending the whole night on a combat mission,” he wrote with an image of the silhouettes of army men morning dusk.

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Continuing on his account, he shared how the objective was to extract a policeman that was trapped by the Talibani insurgents and was wounded. The policeman was at Kandahar city.

“Could feel the tension in the air”

Giving a glimpse of just how dangerous the situation was, he wrote, “I could feel the tension in the air as ASF were expecting an imminent attack from the Taliban. There was sporadic machine gun fire but all hell broke loose as the Humvees reached the extraction point.” with the text, he had a picture of a Humvee making its way through amid a burning vehicle ahead.

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“Was Lucky to be Safe”: Danish, Days before his Death

Highlighting the flashpoint of the mission, Danish shared how the Afghan convoy was attacked by Taliban by RPGs and other weapons. “I was lucky to be safe and capture the visual of one of the rockets hitting the armour plate overhead,” he added.

In another one of his pictures, Danish was seen shutting his eye and had captioned the picture with, “Got a 15 minute break during almost 15 hours of back-to-back missions.”

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Danish’s First Pulitzer Prize, His Work in India

Danish was a fine balance of a brave person with an eye for great image capturing. In 2018, while working with Reuters, he bagged the Pulitzer Prize for the Feature Photography which documented the Rohingya refugee crisis.

A Jamia Milia Islamia student, Danish extensively covered all the matters pertaining to International and National importance based in Asia and Middle East. This included the recent Farmers Protest, the Delhi Riots, the Hong Kong Protests, the Nepal Earthquakes and the very recent COVID-19 impact in India.