Reuters journalist Danish Siddiqui was killed on Friday while covering a clash between Afghan security forces and Taliban fighters near a border crossing with Pakistan.
Danish Siddiqui had been secured as a journalist since earlier this week with Afghan special forces based in the southern province of Kandahar and had been reporting on fighting between Afghan commandos and Taliban fighters.
Just before he died, he tweeted, “Lucky to be alive!” India lost an outstanding photo-journalist based in Mumbai, who used to head the national Reuters Multimedia team. He received the Pulitzer Prize in 2018, as part of the Reuters team, for documenting the Rohingya Refugee Crisis.
It is said that some of his photos look like paintings and he had incredible talent and recently, he was on the front lines of India’s fight against coronavirus, capturing some truly frightening hair-raising moments of the COVID storm as the world watched on in horror.
Danish Siddiqui covered war zones and crises from Iraq to Hong Kong to Nepal. He was killed on Friday covering Afghan-Taliban clashes near the Pakistan border. Here is some of the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer’s best work from the past decade shared below at the end.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said in a statement on Twitter that he was “deeply saddened with the shocking reports” of Siddiqui’s death and extended condolences to his family.
While the world applauded his magnificent photography where he even used drones to capture the most unique scenes, there was a strange silence from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP on his death raising criticism from many Indians.
It's now more than 24 hours since Danish's death. Modi would have 200% issued a strong statement and condoled if Danish wasn't a Muslim.
Forget ₹2 Sanghi Trolls, this is the level of communalism the Prime Minister's chair has been reduced to.
Rot is at the very Top.
— Srivatsa (@srivatsayb) July 17, 2021
Gaurav Pandhi
@GauravPandhi
·
Jul 16
The Taliban has killed an Indian journalist
@dansiddiqui
and the Sanghis are rejoicing, celebrating.
The Taliban & the RSS are two sides of same coin. While former uses Islam, the latter uses Hinduism to propagate its hateful & violent ideology to further political agendas.
The Taliban has killed an Indian journalist @dansiddiqui and the Sanghis are rejoicing, celebrating.
The Taliban & the RSS are two sides of same coin. While former uses Islam, the latter uses Hinduism to propagate its hateful & violent ideology to further political agendas.
— Gaurav Pandhi (@GauravPandhi) July 16, 2021
Unfortunately, a tragedy had been used once again to divide the nation. Danish Siddiqui fascinating photography had captured scenes of the COVID disaster, the Delhi riots and other events in India that perhaps made the government uncomfortable. One of the BJP followers attacking him after his death said, “Danish could not use the world terrorist for Taliban.”
It seemed a strange comment because very recently, it is known that an Indian delegation met with the Taliban in Qatar so double standards are used to define situations according to conviences. It still is sad that the Prime Minister nor any of his party members could offer one word of condolence for the gifted award winning photojournalist while in the same breath, the globe remembers him for his breathtaking photography.
Ed Clowes a journalist from the Middle East shares his beautiful amazing pictures.
@EdClowes
·
Jul 16
Replying to
@EdClowes
‘I shoot for the common man’: Danish Siddiqui’s finest work https://reuters.com/news/picture/i-shoot-for-the-common-man-danish-siddiq-idUSRTXEG1OW/1569063159 via
@Reuters
'I shoot for the common man': Danish Siddiqui's finest work https://t.co/sXlpXfZtcL via @Reuters
— Ed Clowes (@EdClowes) July 16, 2021
Danish Siddiqui, Reuters' chief photographer, won the Pulitzer prize in 2018 for this photo of a Rohingya woman who had crossed the Bay of Bengal to flee genocide.
Danish was killed by a Taliban ambush in Afghanistan today whilst embedded with troops.https://t.co/LMGPHxKijy pic.twitter.com/YNpyJvE5oq
— Ed Clowes (@EdClowes) July 16, 2021