Indian journalist Danish Siddiqui, killed in Kandahar, Afghanistan

Ground Report | New Delhi: Indian journalist Danish Siddiqui; Danish Siddiqui, an Indian journalist, has been killed in Afghanistan. He used to work for the international news agency Reuters. 

Afghan news channel Tolo News quoted sources as saying that Siddiqui died in the Spin Boldak area. Which is located in Kandahar province. Fierce violence is taking place here at this time. Siddiqui was covering the situation in Kandahar for the past few days.

According to Afghanistan's TV channel Tolo News, Danish died while covering the conflict in Spin Boldak district of Kandahar.

The Taliban on Wednesday took control of the city of Spin Boldak and an important border post with Pakistan there.

Danish Siddiqui was the chief photographer of the international news agency Reuters and had been covering the ongoing conflict and tension in Afghanistan for the past few days. He had continuously given details of the situation there on his Twitter account and told how he narrowly survived an attack.

However, Afghanistan's ambassador to India, Farid Mamundzai, has confirmed the news.

He wrote in a tweet that "Shocked by the sad news of the death of my friend Danish Siddiqui in Kandahar last night. Pulitzer Prize-winning Indian journalist was with the Afghan security forces. I met him two weeks ago when he was on his way to Kabul. My condolences to his family and to Reuters."

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Indian journalist Danish Siddiqui

He started his career as a television news correspondent and later became a photojournalist. In the year 2018, Siddiqui along with his colleague Adnan Abidi became the first Indian to win the Pulitzer Prize.

He covered the Rohingya refugee crisis. At the same time, he was constantly sharing information related to the coverage of the ongoing violence in Kandahar on his official Twitter account. 

On June 13, he had informed that the vehicle in which he was traveling was attacked with multiple weapons. In his tweet, Siddiqui wrote, 'I am lucky that I am safe and I saw a rocket going over the armor plate.'

Danish Siddiqui died when there was a war between the Taliban and the security forces of the Afghan government. Foreign troops are leaving Afghanistan after 20 years of fighting, which the Taliban sees as a victory and continues to capture strategically important parts of the country. In the past, the Taliban claimed that it had captured 85 percent of the country.

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India evacuated some 50 diplomats, support staff and security personnel from the consulate in Kandahar on an Indian Air Force flight on July 10 amid growing concerns about the security situation in the city.

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