Maoists storm Indian government camp killing 25

RAIPUR, India - Hundreds of Maoist rebels have stormed a government relief camp in central India and killed at least 25 people, including members of a state-backed, anti-Maoist group, police said.

More than 50 were wounded, and at least 100 people living at the camp housing the Salwa Judum (Campaign For Peace) group went missing after the rebels launched the raid in the Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh state.

All the missing persons returned safely later in the day, state interior minister Ramvichar Netam told reporters.

The rebels also set at least 20 houses on fire.

"The death toll has reached 25 with the recovery of eight charred bodies from debris of burnt houses," Dantewada police chief Om Prakash Pal said.

He said three children and three women were among the dead.

Another police officer said the rebels first attacked armed police guarding the camp and then stormed the camp itself, mostly inhabited by tribals.

The camp is at Arabore, 510km south of Raipur, the state capital. Many of the seriously wounded were taken to the neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh for treatment.

"The majority of them were women and children suffering from burn injuries and also from cold-blooded attacks by the Maoists," said police official Uday Bhaskar.

Police said the majority of those killed belonged to the Salwa Judum group, an anti-Maoist movement set up by the state government and often the target of the rebels. It draws members from local tribes, and activists are usually armed only with bows and arrows.

Hundreds of extra state and federal police have been sent to the heavily forested area to search for the rebels.

Chhattisgarh is the worst-hit of 13 states across eastern, southern and central India affected by Maoists who say they are fighting for millions of India's poor peasants and landless labourers.

Authorities say more than 200 people, including police and Salwa Judum activists, have been killed in increased violence this year in Chhattisgarh.

The New Delhi-based Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) said on Thursday that at least 460 people have been killed in Maoist-related violence in the first half of 2006 in nine Indian states, including 181 civilians and 90 security men.

- REUTERS