Raipur

Twenty-four Indian police officers who had gone missing after a fierce gun battle with Maoist insurgents in the jungles of central India were found dead on Tuesday, a top officer said. The missing men were part of a group of 90 troopers who engaged the rebels for two hours in a hilly forest on Monday in the Dantewada district in the state of Chhattisgarh.

Maoist rebels in central India have killed 50 police officers in one of their worst-ever attacks in decades of insurgency, officials said on Thursday. A large group of rebels hurled grenades, petrol bombs and fired indiscriminately at a jungle security post in Rani Bodli village in Chhattisgarh state, one of several parts of the country in the grip of a left-wing rebellion.