NEW DELHI — Maoist insurgents will not be allowed to spoil next month's Indian elections with violent attacks, the home minister said on Wednesday, a day after rebels killed 16 people in their deadliest raid in almost a year. About 200 rebels had ambushed a group of 44 troops and police guarding construction workers in the south of central Chhattisgarh state on Tuesday, police inspector general Mukesh Gupta said. He initially said 20 troops died but revised it to 16 early Wednesday, 15 law enforcement officers and one civilian. Surviving troops engaged in a three-hour gunbattle with the rebels, who eventually escaped into nearby jungles within Sukma district. No casualties were reported for the rebels, who commonly take their dead and wounded back to their hideouts. Two weeks earlier, the rebels had killed five security personnel in nearby Dantewada district. Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said the national government had issued warnings to leaders in 20 of the 28 Indian states where rebels operate, and that authorities “would provide adequate security and will not allow the polls to be disrupted in any manner.” Tuesday's rebel attack was the deadliest since May 2013, when the Maoists killed 27 people in the same Jiram Ghati valley, including several state politicians from the nationally ruling Congress party. Another attack in the area in 2010 left 76 policemen dead. Shinde said the rebels were trying “to frighten people before the national elections.” But he said, without specifying where the information was coming from, that “support for the rebels is waning” and the rebels “are afraid their organizational strength is declining.” — AP
