Sanna Irshad Mattoo, a Pulitzer winning Kashmiri photojournalist, was barred from leaving the country Tuesday. Mattoo was on her way to the United States to attend the Pulitzer award ceremony in New York on Thursday. This is the second time Mattoo was stopped at the Indira Gandhi International Airport. In July, she was barred from travelling to France to attend a book launch and a photography exhibition. 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. pic.twitter.com/btGPiLlasK — Sanna Irshad Mattoo (@mattoosanna) October 18, 2022 "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 on Tuesday. Mattoo works as a photojournalist for Reuters. She won the 2022 Pulitzer prize in feature photography along with three other Reuters photographers for their coverage of Covid second wave in India. While Mattoo says she was not give any reason for being stopped at the immigration, sources in J&K Police say she, along with several other journalists from the Valley, has been put on the no-fly list by government. Sources say government has prepared a long list of journalists, activists and academicians who have been put on exit control list.
