India: India police killed 24 maoist rebels in Orissa
Police in India say they have killed at least 24 Maoist rebels in the eastern state of Orissa.
One police officer was killed and another injured in the gunfight that followed in a forest straddling the border between Orissa and Andhra Pradesh states.
The region has seen a long-running insurgency by Maoists.
The Maoists say they are fighting for communist rule and greater rights for tribal people and the rural poor.
Their insurgency began in the eastern state of West Bengal in the late 1960s, spreading to more than one-third of India’s 600-plus administrative districts.
The police say that, following a tip-off, they ambushed a group of about 30 Maoist rebels in the forest early on Monday.