Danish Siddiqui wins second Pulitzer for India's Covid deaths photos

Washington: Journalist Danish Siddiqui, who lost his life while covering the conflict situation in Afghanistan, has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography for his coverage of the Covid situation in India.

Siddiqui and his colleagues Adnan Abidi, Sanna Irshad Mattoo, and Amit Dave won for images depicting the toll of the Covid-19 pandemic in India. Their work, which was moved from the breaking photography category by the judges, "balanced intimacy and devastation, while offering viewers a heightened sense of place," the committee wrote.

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. He had extensively covered the Afghanistan conflict, the Hong Kong protests, and other major events in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.

Siddiqui was killed last year while covering the conflict in Afghanistan between Afghan forces and Taliban militants.

Siddiqui was the Chief Photographer for Reuters, based in India. He graduated with a degree in economics from Jamia Millia Islamia, where he would later pursue post-graduation studies in Mass Communication.

Pulitzer Prize 2022 winners in Journalism, Books, Drama, and Music were announced on Monday.

Journalists from Ukraine were also recognized with a 2022 Pulitzer Prize special citation, while jurors of journalism's top honors also recognized coverage of the January 6th attacks on the Capitol, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the Surfside condominium collapse in Florida.

The Pulitzer Prize is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States.

It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fortune as a newspaper publisher, and is administered by Columbia University.