Two Kashmiri photojournalists Dar Yasin, Mukhtar Khan and their Jammu colleague Channi Anand were among dozens of journalists, poets and authors who were honoured at the Pulitzer Prizes ceremony held at Columbia University on Saturday.
The awards presented at the weekend covered the Pulitzers announced in 2020 and 2021. The winners of the 2022 awards, which were announced in May, will be recognized at a separate ceremony in October, reports added.
The three J&K based scribes Dar Yasin, Mukhtar Khan, and Channi Anand were given the prestigious award in 2020 for capturing life in Kashmir after the scrapping of Article 370 executed through the communication clampdown.
“Receiving the Pulitzer Prize at Columbia University in New York. What a great honour. A big thanks to both families AP and home. I am humbled,” Mukhtar Khan, one of the winners, wrote on his Twitter handle.
The three J&K based photojournalists are currently associated with the American news agency, Associated Press.
“Snaking around roadblocks, sometimes taking cover in strangers’ homes and hiding cameras in vegetable bags, the three photographers captured images of protests, police and paramilitary action and daily life — and then headed to an airport to persuade travellers to carry the photo files out with them and get them to the AP’s office in New Delhi,” Associated Press had said in 2020 after the three lensman won the Pulitzer Prizes.
Notably, Dar Yasin and Mukhtar Khan were first Kashmiri journalists who were bestowed with the prestigious award.
Mukhtar Khan has been working with the AP since 2000. He has been covering Kashmir throughout.
Yasin started his career as a videographer in 2004 as a freelancer with the AP. In 2006, he joined the agency as a full-fledged photographer. During his around 16 years of career, Dar Yasin has covered the developments across Kashmir and has flown out to cover the Rohingya crisis, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and other places.
Anand is their colleague who covers the developments in Jammu for the AP was also facilitated.
The photographs for which the three AP newsmen were awarded are about the life in the lockdown after the undoing of the special status to Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, 2019.
The Pultizer jury termed their photographs as “striking images of life” in post-August 2019 Kashmir “executed through a communications blackout”. Jointly the honour carries the US $ 15000.