Indian commandos kill 10 Maoist rebels

Indian security forces gunned down at least 10 Maoist rebels on Friday during a firefight, police said, as New Delhi steps up efforts to crush the long-running armed conflict.

More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long insurgency waged by the Naxalite movement, who say they are fighting for the rights of marginalised Indigenous people of India's remote and resource-rich central regions.

The gun battle took place in a remote forested area of Chhattisgarh state, the heartland of the insurgency.

"Dead bodies of 10 Maoists have been recovered so far," Vivekanand Sinha, chief of the state police's anti-Maoist operations told AFP.

Sinha said the police recovered several automatic weapons from the rebels.

India's home minister Amit Shah this year issued an ultimatum to the insurgents to surrender or face an "all-out assault".

A crackdown by security forces has killed over 200 rebels this year, an overwhelming majority in Chhattisgarh, according to government data.

India has deployed tens of thousands of security personnel to battle the Maoists across the insurgent-dominated "Red Corridor", which stretches across central, southern, and eastern states but has shrunk dramatically in size.

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

The conflict has seen a number of deadly attacks on government forces over the years. Twenty-two police and paramilitaries were killed in a gun battle with the far-left guerrillas in 2021.

Sixteen commandos were also killed in the western state of Maharashtra in a bomb attack that was blamed on the Maoists in the lead-up to national elections in 2019.