Reuters journalists win Pulitzer for India’s Covid reportage, Danish Siddiqui wins posthumously

Journalists Adnan Abidi, Sanna Irshad Mattoo, Amit Dave and Danish Siddiqui, all associated with Reuters, have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography for their coverage of the second wave of Covid in India.

Reuters announced the win on their official Twitter handle, where they were also livestreaming the award ceremony held virtually on Monday. The awards have 15 categories related to works of journalism.

Photojournalist Danish Siddiqui won the award posthumously. On July 16, 2021, he was killed while covering the war in Afghanistan. He was embedded with Afghan forces and was reporting from Spin Boldak in Kandahar when his group was ambushed by Taliban forces.

The Reuters team had published a series of photographs on May 4, 2021, when India was in the thick of the second wave. Titled “Harrowing photos from inside India's Covid nightmare”, the series consists of nearly 60 photographs from the ground and notably depicts the mass cremations which brought international attention and scrutiny to India’s Covid management during the second wave.