NEW DELHI – At least 23 Indian security forces have been killed in a trap set by Maoist militants in the central state of Chattisgarh, officials said Sunday to rekindle concerns over a decades-old uprising that has apparently been largely contained in recent years.
A large number of Indian security personnel carried out a clean-up operation in a densely wooded area on the edge of the Bijapur district when they were ambushed by the insurgents in a four-hour firefight on Saturday.
Avinash Mishra, the deputy superintendent of police in Bijapur, said another 31 security personnel were injured in the attack.
He said the militants, often called Naxalites, also suffered heavy casualties, adding that the body of one insurgent remained on the site while the rest were cleared by tractors. Mr. Mishra said the insurgents managed to seize the dead soldiers’ weapons.
Amit Shah, the Indian Home Minister, the official responsible for domestic security affairs, confirmed the death and cut short the election campaign in the northeast of India to fly back to New Delhi and lead the response, including a search for the attackers.
“The blood of our soldiers, in defense of the country, will not go to waste,” he said. Shah said. “Our fight against the Naxalites will continue with more determination and strength.”
The insurgents who traced their roots to communist politics in the 1960s used violence against the state to pursue the cause of the poor and marginalized of India. Their reach was once so widespread, and their attacks were so frequent, that India’s prime minister declared them the country’s single biggest internal security challenge in 2006.
Over the past decade, however, the Indian government has shrunk the space where the insurgents operate by combining military operations involving tens of thousands of paramilitary forces with economic packages to the areas that the insurgents used as a base for activity and recruitment. Where the insurgents once operated at their peak in about 200 districts, according to official figures, they were limited to less than 50 districts last year.
The government hunted down rebel leaders, killed large numbers or forced them to surrender, and rebellious attacks diminished in frequency and power.
The group nevertheless continues to launch hit-and-run attacks, to lure security forces into a friendly terrain and to inflict casualties. Before the attack on Saturday, 56 people, including security forces, insurgents and civilians, were killed in Maoist violence this year, according to data from the South Asian terrorist portal.