Security forces in the central part of Chhattisgarh were conducting an operation against the left-wing insurgent group, in the Bastar division of the state, when one of the teams was attacked by the insurgents, the chief of police in Chhattisgarh, DM Awasthi , Said Sunday.
Awasthi is still investigating a missing security guard in the area.
The government is embroiled in a decade-long conflict with Maoist rebel groups, also known as the Naxals, who are launching attacks on government forces in an attempt to overthrow the state and usher in a classless society. Maoists are largely active in Central India, in regions populated mainly by tribal peoples.
Militant attacks in several states, including Maharashtra, Odisha and Chhattisgarh, where the rebel movement still has traction, are common.
The Bastard Division, where Sunday’s battle took place, includes the border areas of Sukma-Bijapur – an area that presumably belongs to a number of important Mao strongholds.
Naxalite groups have been active in the country since the 1960s, but the modern uprising only began in the early 2000s. Former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh once described the Maoist rebels – who are well organized and trained – as the country’s “biggest internal security threat”.
More than 2,100 civilians in India have been killed in the Maoist uprising since 2010.
In April 2017, 25 police officers were killed and six others injured when hundreds of suspected Mao rebels attacked a convoy in Central India.
Suspected Maoists also struck during India’s 2019 election, apparently abolishing a supervisor in the eastern state of Odisha. In another incident in the same district that year, suspected Maoists approached a vehicle en route to a polling station and forced officials to disembark before setting it on fire.
According to a 2019 report by the Indian Interior Ministry, 90 districts in 11 states are affected by some form of military Naxal or Mao war.
The government responded to the Maoist uprising with a security action in areas in which the groups are active. An approach that appears to reduce the level of threat has been criticized by some observers as heavy and abusive.