Maoist rebels kill 16 police in Maharashtra

Reuters ^ | May 21, 2009

[Tailgunner Joe]

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Sixteen police are feared dead after they were ambushed by Maoist rebels in Maharashtra on Thursday, police said, the latest in a series of attacks which hit India's recent general election.

"Sixteen policemen perhaps have been killed, I have got the information," Pankaj Gupta, a senior state police official, told CNN-IBN news channel. "Trees were felled and put across the road, and it was obviously a trap it seems."

Dozens of people have died in recent weeks while Maoist violence marred India's month-long general election. The rebels attacked security forces and polling officials, bombed civic buildings and urged voters to boycott the poll.

[Tailgunner Joe]

[swarthyguy]

India’s been fighting these damn Naxalites on and off for decades. However, upto now, attacks in Maharashtra were unknown or rare at least......other parts of India were their hunting ground.....

This massacre portends an expansion of their carnage.....
I smell some Pakistani instigation to make India bleed, literally, and always their perennial goal.

Even if no Pak role, a disturbing attack.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Nepal hand in Naxal strike? - May 22, 2009 - MUMBAI/KATHMANDU, 22 MAY: Maharashtra home minister Mr Jayant Patil today feared involvement of Maoists from Nepal in the Wednesday’s Naxalite attack on counter-insurgency commandos in Dhanora taluka of Gadchiroli district in which two officers and 14 constables including five women were killed by the insurgents. Mr Patil told reporters after visiting the site of encounter between the police and Naxalites at Hattigota forests of Dhanora that the state police was collecting more information to ascertain the involvement of Maoists from Nepal. The police suspected such involvement since the frequency of attacks has not only increased in last few months but the insurgents were getting improved sets of weapons, the source of which could only be tracked down to the sympathisers from the Himalayan state.

[swarthyguy]

The Indians are ready to formalize the LSA with the US, upto now Indian facilities have been used by the US on an ad hoc basis since the First Gulf War, very hush hush back then.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090524/india_nm/india398407

Govt likely to move on U.S. military pact

The Commies are opposed, as usual, and this may be their way to show their opposition. Of course, the Commie political parties and the nutjobs never coordinate their actions, yeah, right!

Also, India’s support for Nepal’s Army in delaying the integration of Maoist cadres into the Army may play a factor as well.