Three persons suspected of involvement in a grenade attack in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district were killed in a gunfight with a joint police team in Uttar Pradesh’s Pilibhit on Monday, PTI reported.

The joint team comprised personnel from the Uttar Pradesh and Punjab police. The three accused were identified as 25-year-old Gurwinder Singh, 23-year-old Varinder Singh alias Ravi and 18-year-old Jashanpreet Singh alias Pratap Singh. All three were residents of Gurdaspur.

They were accused of attacking the Bakshiwala police checkpost in Kalanaur town of Gurdaspur district on December 18.

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Amitabh Yash, the additional director general (law and order) of the Uttar Pradesh Police, told PTI that the accused persons sustained serious injuries in the gunfight and were taken to the Community Health Centre in Pilibhit’s Puranpur for medical treatment. They later succumbed to their injuries.

Two AK-47 rifles, two Glock pistols and a large cache of ammunition were seized from them, Yash added.

Gaurav Yadav, the Punjab director general of police, said that the joint operation “against Pakistan’s ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence] operative in Punjab”, a collaborative effort with the Uttar Pradesh Police, had led to “an encounter with three operatives of KZF [Khalistan Zindabad Force]” in Puranpur.

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Khalistan Zindabad Force is a designated terror organisation in India. Inter-Services Intelligence is Pakistan’s intelligence agency.

“This module is controlled by Ranjeet Singh Nita, the chief of KZF, and operated by Jaswinder Singh Mannu, based in Greece, a resident of village Agwan,” Yadav said on social media. “It is further controlled by Jagjeet Singh, based in the UK and serving in the British Army. Jagjeet Singh used the identity of Fateh Singh Baggi.”

The Punjab police chief said that the development was a “major breakthrough against a Pak-sponsored Khalistan Zindabad Force terror module”.