[Iran Press TV Latest] At least 12 police officers have been killed in a blast caused by a landmine believed to have been planted by suspected Maoist rebels in central India. The attack took place late Saturday when a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) team of about 40 security personnel was patrolling Tongapal, some 500 km (310 miles) south of the state capital Raipur and a hotbed of rebel activity.
"The men were on their way back when their vehicle ran over a landmine," T.G. Landkumer, a senior police officer in the state, told AFP.
He added that seven of the rebels were also killed in an exchange of gunfire after the blast, which left at least 12 police officers dead and 12 others injured.
The assault comes amid efforts by Indian security forces to quell a Maoist-led uprising in the eastern state of West Bengal, where security forces are battling to retake control of hundreds of villages.
In one of the most brazen attacks in recent years, a large band of armed rebels moved into the Lalgarh region -- a heavily forested area some 130 km (80 miles) from West Bengal's capital Kolkata -- earlier this week, driving out poorly armed local police and seizing control of villages in a 20 square mile (52 square km) radius.
On Sunday, West Bengal's Inspector General of Police Raj Kanojia said that operations to flush out the rebels were ongoing without giving further detail.
Based in the dense forests of Chhattisgarh, India's Maoists say they are fighting for the rights of poor tribal people and landless laborers. The ultra-leftist rebels have recently expanded their influence in the rural areas of the east, central and southern India.
Thousands have been killed in Maoist insurgency, which grew out of a peasant uprising in 1967 and which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described as one of the gravest threats to Indian security.