Maoist rebels killed 10 government troops in a landmine blast in India's central Chhattisgarh state on Thursday police said, according to DPA. The landmine blast was set up by Maoist rebels in Dantewada district, about 500 kilometres south of the state capital Raipur, Dantewada police official Rahul Sharma said. All the troopers belonged to a reserve paramilitary force from the north-eastern state of Mizoram, Sharma said. The civilian driver of their vehicle and a child were also killed in the blast. The troopers of the Mizo reserve force have been manning a forward base at Keonta in a so-called "liberated zone" of the Maoist rebels since January, the police official said. "The men had gone shopping to a local town and were on their way back when their vehicle set off the landmine," he said. Maoist rebels, who claim to be fighting for the rural poor, tribal people and the landless, operate in 13 of India's 29 states. Thousands of people, mostly police and paramilitary personnel and government officials, have been killed in the insurgency since the late 1960s. The rebels' usual targets are police patrols and government installations. Chhattisgarh is one of the states most affected by Maoist violence. While 12 policemen were killed in a rebel ambush in the district on August 30, another 24 troops were killed in combat on July 9. In one of the worst incidents in the state, rebels killed 55 policemen at a remote forest outpost in Bijapur district March 15. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the Maoist insurgency as India's biggest internal security threat.
