Nearly two weeks after the death of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Indian photojournalist Danish Siddiqui, a shocking report has now come to the fore by stunning the world that Siddiqui was not a mere target of the Taliban insurgents in their war against the Afghan forces in capturing the country but the extremist group had intentionally captured Siddiqui and brutally murdered him. The report from the US-based magazine was in a fashion that it declares the Taliban's statement, which regretted the attack on the photojournalist, as a sham. 

The report has stirred dismay across and beyond the country by asserting that Siddiqui neither was simply killed in a crossfire in Afghanistan nor was he a collateral damage, but he was brutally executed by the Taliban after verifying his identity. The report was published on Thursday and before its publication, it was in a picture that Siddiqui was killed unknowingly by the Taliban. Siddiqui was killed on July 16 in Spin Boldak district of Kandahar, Afghanistan by the insurgents when he was covering the clashes between the Afghan troops and the Taliban. 

Siddiqui was working with Reuters as a photojournalist and he has photographed the grave human rights violations, refugee crisis, migrant crisis in India at the backdrop of Covid, and the second wave of the pandemic in India, particularly, crematoriums which implied a horrendous impact of the second wave in the country. Siddiqui was on an assignment in Afghanistan to cover the resurgence of the Taliban as the sequel of the drawdown of the US and NATO troops. 

The extremist group has been advancing in the country, pushing the Afghans to see their future as their past. Siddiqui was travelling with the Afghan troops to cover the clashes and two days ahead of his demise, he tweeted that he was lucky to be alive after he embraced a close to destruction attack by the Taliban while he was travelling in an armoured vehicle along with the troops. The news of his death has anguished India as the whole country had mourned the loss of a phenomenal photojournalist, who lived with courage till his last breath. 

Hours after his death, the Taliban has regretted the attack and asked the countries to inform the presence of journalists prior to the group before the attack. However, two weeks after Siddiqui's death, a report has now revealed that the Taliban had executed Siddiqui. According to the Washington Examiner report, Siddiqui had travelled with an Afghan National Army team to the Spin Boldak region to cover fighting between Afghan forces and the Taliban to control the lucrative border crossing with Pakistan. 

When they got to within one-third of a mile of the customs post, a Taliban attack split the team (Afghan troops), with the commander and a few men separated from Siddiqui, who remained with three other Afghan troops. During this assault, Siddiqui, hit with shrapnel, and his team went to a local mosque, where he received first aid. As word spread, however, that a journalist was in the mosque, the Taliban attacked. The local investigation suggests the Taliban attacked the mosque only because of Siddiqui's presence there, the report said. 

The report further said that Siddiqui was alive when the Taliban captured him. The Taliban verified Siddiqui's identity and then executed him, as well as those with him. The commander and the remainder of his team died as they tried to rescue him. Michael Rubin, who is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in the report, "While a widely circulated public photograph shows Siddiqui's face recognizable, I reviewed other photographs and a video of Siddiqui's body provided to me by a source in the Indian government that show the Taliban beat Siddiqui around the head and then riddled his body with bullets." 

The report further said that the Taliban's decision to hunt down, execute Siddiqui, and then mutilate his corpse shows that they do not respect the rules of war or conventions that govern the behaviour of the global community. The shocking report has worried the media community, raising more concerns about entering Afghanistan to cover the plight of the Afghan people as the Taliban are gaining control in the country and began suppressing the journalists by intimidating them and deliberately executing them. 

Slain photojournalist Siddiqui has won the Pulitzer Prize in 2018 as part of the Reuters team for their coverage of the Rohingya crisis. The mortal remains of the 38-year-old photojournalist had arrived at the Delhi airport in the evening hours of July 18 and later kept at his residence in Jamia Nagar in Delhi to pay homage. A huge crowd had gathered at his residence to pay tribute for Siddiqui and he was laid to rest at the graveyard of his alma mater Jamia Millia Islamia University.