Maoist rebels kill 24 in central India ambush

A heavily-armed gang of nearly 300 Maoist rebels killed at least 24 people in an attack on a convoy of local Congress party leaders and supporters in central India, police said Sunday.

The land mine and gun attack on Saturday was the deadliest in three years, and the latest in a long-simmering conflict that pits the insurgents against authorities in the forests of mainly central and eastern India. Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, who rushed to the Chhattisgarh state capital Raipur along with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after the ambush, condemned what she called a "cowardly act" by the Maoists.

"It is not an attack on Congress or its leaders, but an attack on democratic values," she told Congress party workers after visiting the injured, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

State Congress chief Nand Kumar Patel, his son Dinesh, and former state home minister Mahendra Karma -- who had set up a controversial anti-Maoist group in 2005 -- were among those killed in the assault in a remote tribal belt of the state.

"The attack has killed 24 people so far. As many as 37 people are also injured, many of them seriously," state police director-general Ramniwas, who goes by one name, told AFP. Former federal minister Vidya Charan Shukla, 84, who sustained bullet injuries in the attack, was airlifted to New Delhi in "serious" condition for treatment, said Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi after arriving in Raipur late Saturday. The state government has announced a judicial inquiry into the killings. The rebels triggered a land mine before opening fire at the convoy of Congress party workers and leaders who were leaving the area after a political rally, police said. At least six policemen also died in the attack in the Jagdalpur area of Bastar district, 375 kilometres south of Raipur.

"When our cars reached a turning point, the Naxals started firing," an injured Congress worker told India's NDTV news network, referring to the rebels also known as Naxalites. "Two cars were blown up and the firing continued for almost one and a half hours. Some of us lay on the road to save ourselves." Premier Singh, who has described the Maoists as the country's most serious internal security threat, said the ambush should spur the battle against extremists.

AFP