India Stops Journalist From Coming to US to Get Her Pulitzer

SRINAGAR, (IANS) – Kashmiri photojournalist, Sanna Irshad Mattoo, on October 19 said that authorities did not allow her to attend the award ceremony in the US where she was to receive her Pulitzer award for the coverage of Covid pandemic.

“Despite a valid visa and ticket, authorities stopped me at Delhi airport and did not allow me to travel to New York,” she said on her Twitter page.

“I was on my way to receive the Pulitzer award (@Pulitzerprizes) in New York but I was stopped at immigration at Delhi airport and barred from traveling internationally despite holding a valid US visa and ticket,” Mattoo tweeted.

Mattoo also said that this is the second time when she was barred from traveling abroad without giving any reasons.

In June, Mattoo was stopped from traveling to France, where she was supposed to attend a book launch and photography exhibition.

A resident of Srinagar, Mattoo, 28, works as a photojournalist for the international wire agency Reuters. She won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in feature photography along with three other Reuters photographers for their coverage of the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic which ravaged India.