Calcutta, February 16: A stunning attack by Maoist rebels that killed at least 24 police officers in a remote camp in eastern India was an outrageous challenge to the state and exposed the insurgents’ brutal thirst for power, a top Indian official said Tuesday.
The brazen assault Monday — the deadliest rebel attack on police in West Bengal state — came amid a new government crackdown on the Maoists, who are active in 20 of India’s 28 states.
More than 100 guerrillas attacked the security outpost, detonating land mines, setting the facility ablaze, killing two dozen police and stealing weapons, said district magistrate N.S. Nigam.
“Every attack of this kind exposes the true nature and character of the (Maoists),” Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said in a statement. “Their goal is to seize power. Their weapon is violence. No organization or group in a democratic republic has the right to take to violence to overpower the established legal authority.”
The attack took place in Shilda village, about 105 miles (170 kilometers) southwest of state capital, Calcutta.
A total of 51 police officers were in the camp at the time and many remained missing, the Press Trust of India news agency said.
“Never before the police here have suffered so many losses in one attack,” Surajit Kar Purkayastha, a police inspector-general, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Nigam said the camp was close to a bustling market, and the rebels struck when a large number of people were shopping in the area.
Kishenji, a top Maoist leader in the area, claimed responsibility for the attack in a call to a local television station. He said it was in retaliation for a recent security crackdown against the rebels.
Police reinforcements scoured the area Tuesday for the assailants who fled after the assault, Nigam said.
Inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, the rebels have fought for more than four decades demanding land and jobs for farmers and the poor.
In the past few months the Indian government has cracked down on the outlawed rebels, saying it was ready to discuss all their demands but only if they gave up violence.
About 2,000 people — including police, militants and civilians — have been killed in violence over the past few years. The rebels are also known as Naxals or Naxalites, after Naxalbari, the village in West Bengal state where their movement was born in 1967.
—Agencies