Although there was no official statement from the state or the federal government, sources in the J&K Police Department claimed that Mattoo was one of several journalists from the Valley who were placed on the government's no-fly list.
Digital desk: Pulitzer Prize winner Kashmiri photojournalist, Pulitzer Prize winner Sana Irshad Mattoo, was stopped at Delhi airport by immigration officials and restricted from travelling to France on Saturday.
Mattoo claimed that while travelling to Paris for a book launch and photography exhibition, officials stopped her without providing a cause and warned her that she could not leave the country.
"I was scheduled to travel from Delhi to Paris today for a book launch and photography exhibition as one of the 10 award winners of the Serendipity Arles grant 2020. Despite procuring a French visa, I was stopped at the immigration desk at Delhi airport," Mattoo tweeted while posting a photo of her cancelled boarding pass. "I was informed that I would not be able to travel abroad without being given a reason."
Although there was no official statement from the state or the federal government, sources in the J&K Police Department claimed that Mattoo was one of several journalists from the Valley who were placed on the government's no-fly list.
A journalist from Kashmir named Gowhar Geelani was stopped by immigration officers at the Delhi airport in September 2019 on his way to Germany. The J&K government prevented Zahid Rafiq, a former journalist who is now an academic, from going to the US, where he was scheduled to teach at a university last year.
Meanwhile, Ruwa Shah, a journalist, was also prevented from leaving the country. Another academic from South Kashmir was stopped but later allowed to travel after some months.
The 28-year-old Mattoo, a resident of Srinagar, is a photojournalist for the global news organisation Reuters. For covering the COVID second wave in India, she and three other Reuters photographers were awarded the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography.
According to Serendipity Arles' website, the award, which is funded by the Institut Francais en Inde, a division of the French Embassy in India, is available to "lens-based practitioners" who reside in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
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