Police say Maoist rebels blow up army truck, killing 8 soldiers in central India
By APSaturday, May 8, 2010
Police: Maoist rebel blast kills 8 troops in India
NEW DELHI — Maoist rebels blew up an army truck Saturday killing eight paramilitary soldiers and wounding two others in a densely forested area in central India, a top police official said.
The rebels planted and triggered an explosive device that blew up an armored truck traveling in the densely forested Bijapur district of Chattisgarh state, said Vishwa Ranjan, the state’s director general of police.
“The soldiers were on their way home on vacation when the vehicle in which they were traveling was blown up. At least two other people were injured,” Ranjan said Saturday.
This is the first major attack by Maoist rebels in the state since they killed 76 paramilitary soldiers in an ambush on April 6.
Bijapur is about 170 miles (285 kilometers) south of Rapier, the state capital.
Inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, the rebels have fought the central government for more than four decades, demanding land and jobs for tennant farmers and the poor. About 2,000 people — including police, militants and civilians — have been killed in the past few years.
Maoist rebels are often called Naxalites after the Naxalbari area in neighboring West Bengal state where the movement first emerged in the late 1960s.
The rebels, who have tapped into the rural poor’s growing anger at being left out of the country’s economic gains, are now present in 20 of the country’s 28 states and have an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 fighters, according to India’s home ministry.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called them India’s biggest internal security threat.
