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Maoist guerrillas killed five policemen in a gunfight in India's central state of Chhattisgarh on Sunday, a senior police officer told AFP.Three of the men belonged to the elite Border Security Force paramilitary group and two were regular police officers, Chhattisgarh's anti-Maoist operations chief Ramniwas, who only uses one name, told AFP.
The clash took place in Kanker district, 175 kilometres (110 miles) south of the state capital Raipur.
Kanker is the headquarters of a police jungle warfare school which trains security personnel in the government's increasing efforts to tackle the Maoist insurgency.
Chattisgarh is a stronghold of the rebels, who killed 15 police officers in an attack in the state two months ago.
Authorities in New Delhi launched an offensive last year to tackle the worsening insurgency, but since then the Maoists have hit back with a series of bloody strikes.
Maoist rebel groups have fought for decades in east India against state and central government rule, drawing support from tribal groups and landless farmers left behind by the country's.
More than one-third of India's 626 administrative districts are affected by the Maoist insurgency, which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described as the main internal security threat.
The rebels claim they are fighting for the rights of tribal, landless and poor people and are active in some of the country's poorest regions.
Chhattisgarh has seen some of the worst incidents of Maoist violence, most of them in the mineral-rich, forested Bastar region, which covers a 40,000-square-kilometre area and includes Kanker.
From July 2007 to July 2010, 418 civilians and 435 police officers were killed in Chhattisgarh, according to data provided by local police.
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