3 men ‘linked’ to it killed over Punjab attacks, what is Khalistan Zindabad Force

Ranjeet Singh Neeta founded the KZF sometime in the ’90s, by which time Sikh militancy was already on the decline in Punjab. A truck driver with a criminal record, he set up the KZF after moving to Pakistan to escape the law. Official sources say this was surprising as unlike others who had done so, Neeta did not face any serious cases.

Now he is among the top 20 wanted accused in India’s list who are settled abroad. Now around 65 years of age, Neeta, however, is believed to be seriously ailing.

After moving to Pakistan along with wife Charanjit Kaur, and settling in Lahore, Neeta had soon turned to the Khalistan movement. But instead of joining known Sikh militants in Pakistan like Paramjit Singh Panjwar and Wadhwa Singh Babbar, he had formed the KZF.

For this, Neeta tapped into the links he had reportedly developed with Pakistan-based smuggling networks, while plying his truck between Jammu and Punjab.

Punjab Police sources say that, all these years later, Neeta continues to operate via the same network of smugglers and gangsters.

During his initial years in Pakistan, Neeta’s name surfaced in incidents of bomb blasts on trains and buses running between Jammu and Pathankot between 1988 and 1999. In October 2021, he was booked for the murder of Deputy Superintendent of Police Devinder Sharma in Kathua, Jammu. His criminal network in Jammu and Punjab allegedly helped him facilitate targeted killings in Punjab, with the ISI using him to aid Kashmiri militant organisations.

However, towards the end of the 1990s, the KZF gradually fell off the terror radar. The recent spurt of gangsters and smugglers in Punjab is believed to have given it a fresh lease of life.

In 2019, Neeta was accused of using the network to transport among the first-ever consignment of weapons using drones to India. The case, registered by the Amritsar Special Operations Cell, accused Neeta of working “in connivance with German based Gurmeet Singh @ Bagga” to smuggle arms, arms, ammunition, explosives and fake currency into India.

Lately, several low-intensity attacks were alleged to bear the KZF imprint, like the grenade blasts that caused minimal damage and no injuries. Last month, the KZF claimed responsibility for the petrol bomb attack on the house of Shiv Sena leader Harkirat Singh Khurana. No one was harmed in the attack.

The police are probing how the three men killed in the Pilibhit encounter came on the radar of the KZF. As per sources, one of them may have been in touch with some gangsters believed to be linked to the KZF, with the other two his friends.

Since the encounter, a recording purportedly of Neeta has been doing the rounds on social media, threatening the Punjab and UP Police over the “fake encounter”.