India: Almost 300 maoist rebels kill 24 people in Chhattisgarh state ambush
A heavily-armed gang of nearly 300 Maoist rebels killed at least 24 people in an attack on a convoy of local Congress party leaders and supporters in central India, police said Sunday.
The land mine and gun attack on Saturday was the deadliest in three years, and the latest in a long-simmering conflict that pits the insurgents against authorities in the forests of mainly central and eastern India.
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, who rushed to the Chhattisgarh state capital Raipur along with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after the ambush, condemned what she called a “cowardly act” by the Maoists.
“It is not an attack on Congress or its leaders, but an attack on democratic values,” she told Congress party workers after visiting the injured, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.