Maoists kill district police chief, 24 policemen (Third Lead)

Maoists Sunday made one of their deadliest strikes in Chhattisgarh, killing at least 25 policemen, including a district superintendent of police, in an ambush in a forested stretch.

The attack took place in the Manpur belt, some 200 km from here, in the Rajnandgaon district, bordering Maharashtra.

"A contingent of the District Force (DF) and Chhattisgarh Armed Force (CAF) drove into a booby trap laid by Maoists in a thickly forested area in Rajnandgaon district, in which 25 jawans were killed," Girdhari Nayak, additional director general of police, told IANS.

Rajnandgaon District Superintendent of Police Binod Kumar Choubey was among the deceased. This is for the first time in an over three-decade-old Maoist militancy in Chhattisgarh that an official of the superintendent of police rank was killed by the radical Leftists.

"Over 200 heavily armed cadres of the CPI-Maoist's People's Liberation Guerilla Army (PLGA) first attacked the SP's convoy comprising about 100 policemen with powerful land mines and then opened indiscriminate firing," a police officer based at Rajnandgaon said.

"Though policemen returned fire, they were soon overpowered by highly militarised PLGA fighters," the officer said.

Maoists walked away with weapons of the killed policeman.

The death of Choubey, who had earned reputation as one of the sharp and bold police officers in the state, has shaken up the police force. All high-ranking officials, including Director General of Police Vishwaranjan and Home Minister Nankiram Kanwar, rushed to the attack site.

Several injured were admitted to the Rajnandgaon district hospital while a few others were airlifted to state capital Raipur for advanced medical attention.

Insurgents had killed two DF personnel in another incident in the same area Sunday morning. Choubey was leading his reinforcements to that attack site when his convoy was blown up mid-way.

Chief Minister Raman Singh cancelled his trip to Nagpur scheduled for Sunday afternoon after the attack.

After the ultras came to control Lalgarh area in West Bengal, the central government had banned the Communist Party of India (Maoist) last month.

Last updated on Jul 12^th, 2009 at 21:16 pm IST--IANS