3 J&K photojournos bag Pulitzer Prize

Azhar Qadri & Dinesh Manhotra

Tribune News Service

Srinagar/Jammu, May 5

The coverage of 2019 lockdown, when reporting of events in the aftermath of abrogation of Article 370 was extraordinarily difficult as communication lines were snapped, has won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for three photojournalists from J&K.

Mukhtar Khan and Dar Yasin, both from Srinagar, and Channi Anand from Jammu, all of whom work for the Associated Press (AP), won the prize in ‘Feature Photography’. It is the first-ever Pulitzer for journalist from the region.

The highly-acclaimed award, which was established in 1917 by provisions in the Will of newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, is administered by Columbia University.

Anand said he was left “speechless” after the announcement was made. “I could not say any word. This is a very big honour for me,” Anand, who joined the AP as a stringer in 1999, said.

Yasin, who joined AP in 2004 and who has covered the war in Afghanistan as well as the recent Rohingya crisis, said it was a “privilege beyond any we could have ever imagined”. It’s an honour. It’s overwhelming to receive this honour”.

Khan, who has been part of the Associated Press since 2000 and a regular face at the scenes of gunfights, militant funerals and protests in Kashmir, said it was beyond his imagination to win the coveted prize.

“This award is an honour for us,” he said. “I could never have imagined it in my lifetime, it could have also been impossible without my family, both at home and AP,” he said.

The prize has come at a time when photographers and reporters in the region are battling intense scrutiny from security agencies and at least two of them have been booked under a stringent anti-terror law.

Many journalists in Kashmir celebrated the prize as the vindication of their reporting of events under extraordinary situations and under extraordinary pressures. “This comes at the darkest times,” a young photojournalist said.