ATROCITY IN AFGHANISTAN

Body of Reuters Journalist Mutilated After Taliban Ambush, Report Says

Officials said Danish Siddiqui’s body was unrecognizable when it reached a hospital. The Taliban says its insurgents treated it with respect.

The body of an Indian Reuters photojournalist killed by the Taliban earlier this month was heavily disfigured by the time doctors received it, disputing insurgents’ claims that the remains were treated with respect. Danish Siddiqui was shot in a Taliban-controlled city on July 16 when insurgents ambushed his traveling group. While photographs showed Siddiqui’s body intact shortly after his death, doctors at the hospital that received the corpse and local officials reported it mutilated beyond recognition. Photos reportedly showed tire marks on Siddiqui’s face and chest and bullet holes all over his body. A Taliban spokesman told The New York Times its forces were ordered to handle bodies with care, giving them over to local elders or the Red Cross. “The brutality with which Taliban fighters punished Danish proves the abuses that he was documenting,” Meenakshi Ganguly, a director for Human Rights Watch, told the Times.