AT LEAST 10 Indian policemen were killed yesterday when their convoy struck a landmine planted by suspected Maoists rebels in eastern Orissa state, officials said.
Another 10 police officers were wounded in the attack on a road near Mantriamba village, some 500km south of the provincial capital Bhubaneshwar, a senior police officer said.
No one has admitted responsibility for the attack.
Police, however, said Maoist rebels detonated the landmine as the convoy of three buses carrying nearly 70 police officers arrived in the area to clear it of rebels as part of the federal government’s anti-insurgent Operation Green Hunt, launched in February.
The first vehicle hit by the blast was wrecked, killing 10 policemen immediately.
Yesterday’s attack coincided with a visit by federal home minister Palaniappan Chidambaram to a rebel stronghold in Bengal state where he reviewed the progress of the anti-Maoist offensive.
Inspired by the Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, Maoist rebels have waged their “People’s War” over four decades demanding land and jobs for poor farmers, tribal people and the dispossessed.
Prime minister Manmohan Singh said the Maoists, who run parallel administrations in their areas of dominance, were India’s “biggest internal security challenge ever”.