The encounter between security forces and a suspected militant in Lucknow ended after 12 hours at 3 am on Wednesday. The Uttar Pradesh police found the suspect’s body inside a house in the city’s Thakurganj locality. They believe that the suspect – identified as Saifullah – was part of the group behind the explosion inside a compartment of a Bhopal-Ujjain train on Tuesday, reported NDTV.

Investigators found a pistol, revolver, knife and flag of the Islamic State group at the hideout, ANI reported. The police had tried to force Saifullah to surrender, throwing chilli bombs to draw him out. “Had we caught him alive, we would have extracted more information, but we had no choice,” Senior Anti-Terrorism Squad officer Aseem Arun told NDTV.

The UP ATS claimed that Saifullah was a member of a local Islamic State cell. His father said what Saifullah did was not in the interest of the country. “We will not accept the body of an anti-national,” Sartaj told ANI. However, the father of two suspects arrested in Kanpur – Imran and Faizan – told ANI that the accusations made against his sons were false.

Six other suspects were arrested from Kanpur and Aligarh in connection with the train blast, reported India Today. “We will investigate all the suspects we have arrested,” Additional Director General Daljeet Chaudhary said, adding that all agencies were working together on the case.

The police had initially thought that there were two militants holed up inside the house. “We used micro-tube cameras to conduct a recon of the site. The image was not clear, so we thought there were two terrorists,” said Aseem Arun, a senior ATS officer.

The police used CCTV footage from the site of the train explosion to track down the suspects. They arrested two people from Kanpur, one from Etawah in UP and three others from Madhya Pradesh. They are on the lookout for three more suspects whom they believe are responsible for the explosion.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said the incident could be linked to the Islamic State group. At least nine people were injured in the train explosion.