Raipur, India, April 26 (AFP\/APP): Ten policemen and their driver were killed in India’s central Chhattisgarh state Wednesday when their vehicle hit an improvised explosive device, an attack police blamed on Maoist rebels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
India’s long-running Maoist insurgency began in the 1960s and has cost thousands of lives in the decades since, although violence has waned considerably in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wednesday’s deaths were the worst casualties for security forces in more than two years and claimed the lives of police reservists returning from a mission to investigate rebel movements in the remote Dantewada district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“They were returning from an operation when the explosion took place targeting their vehicle,” senior Chhattisgarh police official Vivekanand told AFP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Footage aired on broadcaster NDTV showed a crater that stretched several feet into the earth, and security forces inspecting mangled vehicle parts strewn about by the blast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel told reporters the attack was “very saddening” and pledged to redouble efforts to combat the state’s naxalites, as India’s Maoist insurgents are known.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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