A dozen Maoist rebels were killed Wednesday during a firefight with special police commandos in a remote Indian forest, a top elected official said, in the latest clash in the country's oldest running conflict.
The deadly skirmish happened in Gadchiroli, some 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) east of Mumbai, during a major search operation by security forces.
"Twelve Naxalites have been neutralised in this operation," the deputy chief minister of the western Maharashtra state told reporters, referring to the slain Maoist rebels.
"All twelve bodies have been recovered."
It was unclear if any security forces personnel were wounded in the latest confrontation in India's long-running Maoist insurgency, which began in the 1960s and has cost tens of thousands of lives.
Gadchiroli is one of dozens of Maoist hotbeds dotting the mineral-rich districts of central and eastern India where tens of thousands of guerrillas are fighting the government for better rights for marginalised and indigenous peoples.
The government has deployed tens of thousands of forces to battle the rebels across the insurgent-dominated region known as the "Red Corridor", which stretches across several central, southern and eastern states.
India has invested millions of dollars into infrastructure development and mineral extraction in the remote areas, dominated by tribal communities, and claims to have confined the insurgency to smaller pockets of influence over the last two decades.