Security forces in central Chhattisgarh were conducting an operation against the left-wing insurgent group in the state’s Bastar Division when one of the teams was attacked by insurgents, Chhattisgarh police chief DM Awasthi said on Sunday.
The search for a missing security member is still ongoing in the area, Awasthi added.
The government has been embroiled in a decade-long conflict with Maoist rebel groups, also known as the Naxals, which are launching attacks on government forces in an attempt to overthrow the state and introduce a classless society. The Maoists are largely active in central India, in regions populated mainly by tribal peoples.
Militant attacks in several states, including Maharashtra, Odisha and Chhattisgarh, where the rebel movement still has traction, are frequent.
The Bastar Division, where Sunday’s battle took place, includes the Sukma-Bijapur border areas – an area considered to be among several key Maoist cities.
Naxalite groups have been active in the country since the 1960s, but modern insurgency did not begin until the early 2000s. Former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh once described Maoist rebels – who are well organized and trained – as “the worst threat.” to the internal security ”of the country.
More than 2,100 civilians in India have been killed in the 2010 Maoist insurgency.
In April 2017, 25 police officers were killed and six others injured when hundreds of suspected Maoist rebels attacked a convoy in central India.
Maoist pennants also hit during the 2019 Indian elections, allegedly shooting a voting supervisor in the eastern state of Odisha. In another incident in the same district that year, alleged Maoists approached a vehicle heading to a polling station and forced officials to disembark before setting it on fire.
According to a 2019 report by the Indian Ministry of Internal Affairs, 90 districts in 11 states are affected by some form of Naxal or Maoist militancy.
The government responded to the Maoist insurgency by cracking down on security in areas where groups are active, an approach that, while appearing to reduce the level of threat, has been criticized by some observers as heavy and prone to abuse.