PATNA, India — At least six Indian soldiers were killed and another wascritically injured on Sunday when Maoist rebels targeted their vehicle witha bomb in eastern India, police said.
The rebels detonated a bomb as the police vehicle ran over it in Dantewadadistrict of Chhattisgarh state, said D.M. Awasthi, the chief ofcounterinsurgency operations in the state. The explosion extensivelydamaged the vehicle.
Awasthi said the police were escorting a truck carrying material to a roadconstruction site in a forested area when the rebels triggered the blast.
Five police officials died at the scene of the blast. Two others werecritically injured and sent to a hospital, where one of them later died,police said.
Reinforcements of police and paramilitary soldiers rushed to the scene andlaunched a hunt to track down the attackers.
The Maoist rebels, inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong,have been fighting the Indian government for more than four decades,demanding land and jobs for tenant farmers, the poor and indigenouscommunities.
The government has called the rebels India’s biggest internal securitythreat. With thousands of fighters, the rebels control vast swaths of areain the country.
The rebels, also known as Naxalites, have ambushed police, destroyedgovernment offices and abducted government officials for more than fourdecades. The insurgency began in 1967 as a network of left-wing ideologuesand young recruits in the village of Naxalbari outside Kolkata, the capitalof West Bengal state.
They have blown up train tracks, attacked prisons to free their comradesand stolen weapons from police and paramilitary warehouses to armthemselves.
Last month, authorities said troops killed at least 44 suspected rebels inmultiple raids in western India.