Three Indian photojournalists win Pulitzer price for covering Jammu and Kashmir after it lost its special status

^{Columbia University}

• Dar Yasin, Mukhtar Khan and Channi Anand captured the life inside Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of article 370.
  
• Pulitzer Prize is the highest honour US-based journalists can get.
  
• On August 5, Modi-government revoked Article 370 of the Indian constitution that gave Jammu and Kashmir a special status and formed two separate Union Territories.

Three photojournalists — Dar Yasin, Mukhtar Khan and Channi Anand — who work at Associated Press in India have won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in feature photography.

The three photojournalists won the prize “for striking images of life in the contested territory of Kashmir as India revoked its independence, executed through a communications blackout,” said the Pulitzer website.

“Snaking around roadblocks, sometimes taking cover in strangers’ homes and hiding cameras in vegetable bags...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 said in a statement.

Pulitzer Prize is the highest honour US-based journalists can get. It usually happens at Columbia University, however, this time the prizes were announced online due to the coronavirus outbreak.

On August 5, the Narendra Modi-government revoked Article 370 of the Indian constitution that gave Jammu and Kashmir a special status and formed two separate Union Territories. The government also blocked all internet services for 5 months, imposed a curfew, shut off all kinds of communications including cable TV services and landlines.

Dar Yasin and Mukhtar Khan live in Srinagar, whereas Anand is based out of Jammu. "It was always cat-and-mouse. These things made us more determined than ever to never be silenced,” Yasin told Aljazeera. Several journalists were arrested. While some were forced to opt for other livelihood options after they lost their job.

See also: Kashmir's 5-month internet blackout is the longest ever imposed in a democracy - and it's stifling local workers
India shut off the internet and ordered tourists to leave the hotly contested Kashmir region, in a risky bid to end its quasi-independence