RAIPUR, India, April 3, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - At least 13 Maoist insurgents were 
killed in a clash in central India, police said Wednesday, taking the rebel 
toll in the long-running conflict to 50 this year.

Police said the gunfight with security forces took place in a remote forest 
in Chhattisgarh state's Bijapur district on Tuesday.

Local police chief P. Sundarraj told AFP that officers had seized a large 
cache of rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers and ammunition.

He said the gunfight with the guerrillas had lasted for around 14 hours.

"The identity of the Maoist dead bodies is yet to be established," Sundarraj 
said, adding that three of those killed were women.

More than 50 Maoists have been killed in India this year, 46 of them in 
Chhattisgarh and another four in Maharashtra state, according to police 
figures.

India has deployed tens of thousands of security personnel to battle the 
Maoist rebels across the insurgent-dominated "Red Corridor", which stretches 
across central, southern and eastern states but has been shrinking in size
.
The insurgents, who are known as Naxalites and say they are fighting for the 
rural poor, have carried out guerilla attacks since 1967.

New Delhi has pumped millions of dollars into infrastructure development into 
remote areas, and claims to have confined the insurgency to 45 districts in 
2023, down from 96 in 2010.

The annual number of rebels killed has dropped by more than two-thirds in the 
past decade, according to government figures.

India is to hold a marathon six-week general election beginning on April 19.