New Delhi (AFP)
Reuters photographer Danish Siddiqui was laid to rest in New Delhi on Sunday evening, two days after being killed in Afghanistan while covering fighting between Afghan security forces and the Taliban near a border post with Pakistan .
Siddiqui, a 38-year-old Pulitzer Prize-winning Indian, has been accompanying Afghan security forces near Kandahar, a large city in southern Afghanistan since the start of the week, Reuters reported on Friday.
His remains arrived by plane to New Delhi on Sunday evening and his coffin was taken to his home, outside which hundreds of relatives and colleagues had gathered.
Half a thousand people then attended final prayers at Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi, where he was educated, according to an AFP photographer.
He was buried overnight in the campus cemetery.
Tributes have multiplied in India after the announcement of his death, including vigils in many cities on Saturday.
Danish Siddiqui was part of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2018 in the "Magazine Photography" category for their coverage of the Rohingya refugee crisis.
He had been working for the Reuters news agency since 2010 and had covered the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Rohingya crisis, the protests in Hong Kong or the earthquakes in Nepal.
Afghanistan has long been one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists.
In the 2021 press freedom ranking published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Afghanistan occupies 122nd place out of 180.
Several journalists or media workers, including women, have been killed in targeted attacks since Washington and the Taliban reached an agreement in February 2020 paving the way for the departure of foreign troops from the country.
© 2021 AFP