17 rebels killed in Indian anti-Maoist crackdown

INDIA: Police killed 17 Maoist rebels in a shootout in dense forest in central India, the latest in a string of bloody battles with the leftist insurgents, police said on Wednesday.

"Seventeen bodies are in our possession," said senior police officer Rahul Sharma in Chattisgarh state's Dantewada area, the epicentre of India's Maoist revolt. "We're sure two big leaders have been hit," he added.

The clash, 500 kilometres (300 miles) southwest of the state capital Raipur, was the latest in a decades-old insurgency by rebels who say they are fighting for the rights of neglected tribal people, poor farmers and landless labourers. Tuesday's shootout erupted after police were told the rebels were meeting in the forest, Sharma said.

"We got precise information," said Sharma. Some 300 police, half of them from Chhattisgarh and the rest from a special anti-Maoist paramilitary force set up in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh state, surrounded the group of about 50 rebels, officials said.

The clash followed a major anti-Maoist crackdown last month in which nearly 50 rebels were killed in days of fighting.

The left-wing insurgency grew out of a peasant uprising in 1967 and has hit half of India's 29 states. Raipur, Wednesday, AFP