New Delhi, Oct 4 (IANS): Three criminals were apprehended on Thursday by a Delhi Police team, which chased them to Uttar Pradesh's Meerut and exchanged fire with them before cornering them.

A joint team of the Delhi Police's Special Cell, led by Assistant Commissioner of Police, Attar Singh and UP Police Crime Branch from Meerut chased and caught the criminals - identified as Saddam alias Ghauri, 29, Dalip, 19, and Usman, 33 - in Meerut's Transport Nagar area after a gunfight, DCP, Special Cell, Pramod Kumar Singh Kushwaha, said.

All the three, who were in a car, were injured in the shootout which took place around 9.15 p.m. According to the DCP, Saddam, a resident of Delhi's Bindapur, was hit in both legs and the other two, both residents of Meerut, in one leg each.

None of the policemen were injured as they were sporting bullet-proof jackets, Kushwaha said.

At least 15 rounds of fire were reported from the encounter, said to be the biggest joint operation between the two police forces in a year and a half.

The DCP said that the Special Cell team was on the track of Saddam and his henchmen for some days but they had somehow managed to elude the police. However, on Thursday, when they saw the criminals leave Delhi and head for Meerut, police hung on to them and managed to catch them.

According to Kushwaha, Saddam had, along with his associates, freed Amit Bhura, a sharp-shooter of the Neeraj Bawania gang, from UP Police in Baghpat in 2014.

The gang members had also looted two AK-47s and a SLR from the UP Police, and thus it was also on their trail, the DCP added.

He had also been absconding long in a case filed against him in the national capital under the stringent MCOCA.

All the three injured criminals were injured in a hospital in Meerut.