Police official says Maoist rebels kill at least 60 paramilitary soldiers in eastern India
By Indrajit Singh, APTuesday, April 6, 2010
Maoist rebels kill 60 troops in eastern India
PATNA, India — Maoist rebels killed at least 60 paramilitary soldiers in attacks Tuesday in eastern India, a senior police official said, the most casualties since government forces launched an offensive against the insurgents last year.
At least 81 troops were part of a patrol party that came under attack in the rebel stronghold of Dantewada early Tuesday morning, R.K. Vij, the inspector general of state police said.
He said 60 bodies of the soldiers killed in at least two attacks had been recovered so far, and fighting between was continuing in the remote and heavily forested area. Eight wounded troops were also found.
Three soldiers were killed in an ambush and 17 others were killed when their vehicle was blown up by a land mine, Vij said.
The troops killed in the blast were on their way to recover the bodies of those killed in the earlier attack, he said.
Few other details are available from the area. The rebels rarely speak to the press, aside from issuing occasional statements.
“Fighting is still carrying on in the area, and we’re having great difficulty getting news from there,” said Ashok Dwivedi, an official at the police control room in state capital of Raipur.
In New Delhi, Home Minister P. Chidambaram told reporters the attacks showed “the brutality and the savagery” that the rebels were capable of.
The rebels, also known as Naxals or Naxalites, after Naxalbari, the village in West Bengal state where their movement was born in 1967, killed at least 24 police officers in West Bengal in a stunning attack on their camp in February.
Inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, the rebels have tapped into the rural poor’s growing anger at being left out of the country’s economic gains and are now present in 20 of the country’s 28 states. They have an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 fighters.
In the past few months, the Indian government has cracked down on the rebels, saying it was ready to discuss all their demands, but only if they gave up violence.
About 2,000 people — including police, militants and civilians — have been killed in violence over the past few years.
