Maoist rebels kill 24 Indian soldiers guarding roadbuilding workers

MAOIST REBELS have killed at least 24 Indian paramilitary soldiers and injured six others in central India in one of the worst attacks on the country’s security forces in recent years.

The rebels fired from hilltops at a group of paramilitary soldiers who were guarding workers building roads in a forested area of the Sukma district, in Chhattisgarh state.

The government has been trying to improve roads in the dense jungles of Chhattisgarh to make it easier for security forces to pursue the rebels.The injured were taken by helicopter to a hospital.

CNNNews18 television said seven other soldiers from the Central Reserve Police Force were missing. It quoted a paramilitary soldier as saying that hundreds of rebels attacked the paramilitary soldiers and there was an exchange of gunfire between the two sides.

The insurgents, who say they are inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, have been fighting for more than three decades in central and eastern India, staging hit-and-run attacks to press their demand for a greater share of wealth and more jobs for the poor. Last month, the rebels killed 11 paramilitary soldiers in an ambush in the region.

In 2010, 76 Central Reserve Police Force soldiers were killed in the Dantewada region in the state in a similar attack by the rebels.