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17 Indian police die in Maoist attack
2009-10-08
MUMBAI (AFP) - Maoist rebels on Thursday gunned down 17 policemen in western India in a firefight, authorities said, the latest in a series of deadly assaults in an increasingly lethal insurgency. At least 150 Maoists attacked the policemen in a village in a forest area of Maharashtra state near the border of Chhattisgarh, where the rebels have their stronghold, police said. "One senior officer and 16 constables have died," police inspector S.D. Mundhe told AFP by telephone. "The rebels have fled to the Chhattisgarh (state) border," Mundhe said. "We cannot search for them in the dark." The violent exchange in Gadchiroli district lasted more than two hours, Mundhe said, and began around midday. The Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported that at least 15 guerrillas had been killed in the battle. Police spokesman N.S. Jagtap told AFP that there had been Maoist deaths but said the number was as yet uncertain. The news agency quoted Home Secretary G.K. Pillai as saying the central government had sent additional paramilitary forces to the area. Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan said India was facing a "war-like situation," according to PTI, adding the state would do "whatever is required" to deal with the threat posed by the Maoists. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently described the Maoist insurgency as the greatest threat to India's internal security. Maharashtra is home to India's financial capital Mumbai and is due to hold legislative assembly elections next week. On Wednesday India's Home Minister P. Chidambaram warned the Maoists to abandon violence or face a major assault by security forces following the beheading of a policeman kidnapped last week by the guerrillas. India's Maoists say they are fighting for the rights of the rural poor who have missed out on the country's economic boom. But officials accuse them of using intimidation and extortion to collect money and to control impoverished villagers. The rebel movement, which started as a peasant uprising in 1967, is active in more than half of the country's 29 states. Little is known about the Maoist movement's shadowy leadership or its strength. It is said to number at least 10,000 to 20,000 followers. PTI quoted Superintendent of Police S. Jaya Kumar as saying the attack took place about two kilometres (1.6 miles) from a police station. He said police were on a routine patrol when they encountered the Maoists, known as Naxalites in India after the town of Naxalbari in the poverty-hit eastern state of West Bengal where the movement was born. "Combing operations have been undertaken. We do not have much communication and transport," Kumar told PTI, adding efforts were under way to airlift the unspecified number of injured. In June, the government slapped a formal ban on the rebels, officially designating them terrorists, and last month began a graphic newspaper advertising campaign to counter the propaganda of the Maoist insurgents. The government printed photographs of the bodies of people killed by the extremists in national newspapers with the tagline: "These are innocent people -- victims of Naxal (Maoist) violence." Federal and state authorities have been struggling to come up with a strategy to battle the guerrillas. Some officials have called for a massive and coordinated security operation of the kind used to battle insurgents in Indian Kashmir. Others say the focus needs to be placed on improving living conditions in India's impoverished hinterland. "We have to reach out to the poor people. We can't rely on force," one senior government bureaucrat told AFP on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
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