Danish Siddiqui, 3 other Indians get Pulitzer for Covid coverage

NEW YORK: Slain photojournalist Danish Siddiqui is among four Indians honoured with the prestigious Pulitzer Prize 2022 in the feature photography category.

Siddiqui and his colleagues Adnan Abidi, Sanna Irshad Mattoo and Amit Dave from the Reuters news agency 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.

Siddiqui, 38, was on assignment in Afghanistan last year when he died. The award-winning journalist was killed in July last while covering clashes between Afghan troops and the Taliban 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.

Marcus Yam of the Los Angeles Times bagged the award in the Breaking News photography category “for raw and urgent images of the US departure from Afghanistan that capture the human cost of the historic change in the country”.

The Washington Post bagged the Pulitzer Prize in public service journalism for its coverage of the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.

The Pulitzer Board awarded a special citation to the journalists of Ukraine for their “courage, endurance, and commitment to truthful reporting during (President) Vladimir Putin’s ruthless invasion of their country and his propaganda war in Russia”.