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MUMBAI: Maoist rebels on Thursday gunned down 17 policemen in western India, police said, the latest in a series of deadly assaults in an increasingly lethal insurgency.
At least 150 Maoists attacked the policemen in a forested area in Gadchiroli district 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 Maoists attacked the local police in a gunfight that lasted more than two hours, Mundhe said. The attack in the village of Laheri began around midday, police said.
CNN-IBN news station quoted Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan as saying that India was facing a "war-like situation". He added that the country had enough security forces to deal with the threat posed by the Maoists.
Maharashtra is home to India's financial capital Mumbai.
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.
The Press Trust of India quoted Superintendent of Police S. Jaya Kumar as saying the attack took place about two kilometres (1.6 miles) from a police station.
The news agency 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 the news agency, adding efforts were under way to airlift the injured.
In June, the government slapped a formal ban on the rebels, officially designating them terrorists.
"As long as they don't abjure or give up violence, security forces will confront them," Chidambaram said on Wednesday. "There will be engagements. That violence is simply unacceptable in a democracy."
The Indian government 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."
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the Maoist insurgency as the greatest threat to India's internal security.
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.
- AFP/yb
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