1,000 Reported Killed in India

Fighters from the Communist Party of India (Maoists). The guerrilla units have killed over 70 police in early April 2010.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

1 000 people killed in India

AFP

NEW DELHI. Almost 1 000 people including civilians have been killed in the first 10 months of 2010 in violence linked to a raging Maoist insurgency in India, the government said yesterday.

At least 577 civilians, 260 policemen and troopers and 137 suspected Maoist rebels died between January and October, Junior Home Minister Ajay Maken told parliament’s lower house.

The highest civilian casualties were reported from Marxist-ruled West Bengal state, he added.

The insurgency-riven state of Chhattisgarh accounted for the most casualties among security force personnel with 163 deaths, he said in a statement.

Authorities launched a major offensive last year to tackle the insurgency, which has spread to 15 of India’s 20 states and is described by Premier Manmohan Singh as the biggest internal security threat facing the country.

The movement which began in 1967 feeds off land disputes, police brutality and corruption and is strongest in the poorest and most deprived areas of India, many of which are rich in natural resources.

Maken said New Delhi had launched 69 separate welfare programmes in 35 insurgency-hit districts to try and wean away people from enlisting with the leftwing guerrillas. — AFP.