The dead 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, the New York Times quoted officials as saying.
Siddiqui, 38, was killed on 16 July, 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 Siddiqui’s body with multiple wounds but fully intact, NYT reported.
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 NYT reviewed multiple photographs, some provided by Indian officials and others taken by Afghan health workers at the hospital, that showed Siddiqui’s body had been mutilated. One Indian official said that the body had nearly a dozen bullet wounds and that there were tire marks on Siddiqui’s face and chest.
Another health official quoted by NYT said that the Inddian photojournalist’s face was unrecognisable, and he could not determine exactly what had been done to the body.
A Taliban spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, denied any wrongdoing, saying that they were under orders to treat bodies with respect and to hand them over to local elders or the Red Cross.
There are conflicting reports about what happened on July 16, as the Afghan special forces with whom Siddiqui was traveling tried to retake Spin Boldak.
Accounts from local officials, as well as Taliban members, suggest that Siddiqui and the Afghan unit’s commander were killed in a crossfire when their convoy was ambushed from multiple directions. Their bodies were left on the battlefield as the rest of the unit retreated, according to this version of events.
Some news outlets reported that Siddiqui might have been captured alive by the Taliban and then executed. Those reports could not be confirmed. One Indian official, however, said that some of Siddiqui’s wounds appeared to be from gunshots at close range.