Fifty dead and dozens of wounded in a terrible attack carried out on Thursday morning by Maoist rebels against police and security forces in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh.

The attack. Just before dawn on Thursday morning, a group of three-hundred Maoist rebels, known as Naxalites, emerged from the jungle in the Dantewada district, 1,500 kilometres south of the Indian capital of New Delhi, and attacked the police station in Bijapur with hand grenades and home-made bombs. At least fifty-five members of the police and security forces were killed in the attack. The rebels, who apparently included a number of women, then escaped back into the jungle after having looted the arms depot, set fire to the police camp and planted a large number of mines around the camp, making it very difficult for the rescue workers. “There were bodies everywhere”, according to an eyewitness who had arrived in Bijapur just after dawn, “and the police were afraid to go near the bodies of their colleagues because of the possibility of other bombs”.

 

The Maoist revolt. The Naxalite Maoist guerrillas, who take their name from a peasants revolt that exploded in 1967 in the village of Naxalbari in West Bengal, are currently active in twenty-eight states in India. The Naxalites are fighting against the central government for an independent socialist state and, according to their spokesmen, “in defence of the peasants’ right to land”, and since 1967 there have been at least 6,000 deaths. On Wednesday, the day before the latest attack, the Indian Interior Minister, Shivraj Patil, told parliament that in 2006 the violence and assassinations attributed to the Naxalites increased by over 50% in the state of Chhattisgarh, while it went down in the other states where the guerrillas are fighting. According to data collected by PeaceReporter, since the beginning of 2007 fighting between the Naxalites and the central government has claimed the lives of at least 73 people, but with this morning’s attack this number has dramatically increased.