Body of Reuters Photographer Was Mutilated in Taliban Custody, Officials Say
Source: nytimes
The body of Danish Siddiqui, a Pulitzer Prize winner killed in Afghanistan, was unrecognizable when it was brought to a Kandahar hospital, one official said.
By Mujib Mashal July 31, 2021, 4:14 a.m. ET
NEW DELHI — The body of Danish Siddiqui, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Reuters photojournalist who was killed in Afghanistan this month, was badly mutilated while in the custody of the Taliban, officials said this week.
The revelation comes amid concern that the fighting in Afghanistan, where the Taliban have carried out an aggressive military offensive since the United States withdrew nearly all its troops, has become increasingly brutal as peace talks have stalled.
Mr. Siddiqui, 38, an Indian national who took some of the most memorable news photographs from South Asia in recent years, was killed on the morning of July 16, when Afghan commandos he had accompanied to Spin Boldak, a border district recently captured by the Taliban, were ambushed. Initial photographs from the scene showed Mr. Siddiqui’s body with multiple wounds but fully intact.
But by that evening, when the body was handed over to the Red Cross and transferred to a hospital in the southern city of Kandahar, it had been badly mutilated, according to two Indian officials and two Afghan health officials there. The mutilation was reported by an Indian website, Newslaundry, in the days after Mr. Siddiqui’s killing.....................................
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/31/world/asia/danish-siddiqui-afghanistan-photographer.html
I can only hope he died very quickly.
A tribute to Danish Siddiqui in New Delhi on July 17, the day after his death.Credit...Altaf Qadri/Associated Press
Mujib Mashal
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Carrying Mr. Siddiqui’s coffin in New Delhi on July 18.Credit...Altaf Qadri/Associated Press
"Mr. Siddiqui was buried late at night in a cemetery at Jamia Millia Islamia, the university in New Delhi from which he had graduated. At a candlelight vigil, reporters held pictures of him wearing his press vest. The text read simply, “Danish Siddiqui, Killed in Afghanistan.”"
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