India minister Chidambaram reviews Maoist rebel attacks
India's Home Minister P Chidambaram is visiting the central state of Chhattisgarh, a day after Maoist rebels killed 75 soldiers.
A large patrol of federal paramilitary troops was ambushed on Tuesday by hundreds of heavily armed insurgents in a remote part of Dantewada district.
Rescue teams were later ambushed in attacks using landmines and gunfire.
Correspondents say it is the worst attack on security forces by the rebels since their insurgency began.
An air force transport aircraft has been sent to Chhattisgarh to bring back the bodies of the soldiers who died in the attacks.
Mr Chidambaram said the offensive against the Maoists would continue - 12 rebels have been arrested in Chhattisgarh after the latest attacks.
Police officials said the paramilitary troops, belonging to India's Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), came under attack in the densely forested Mukrana forest in Dantewada district.
The troops were returning to their camp with an armoured vehicle after a three-day-long combing operation in the area.
Home Secretary GK Pillai told the BBC that they had gone looking for rebel training camps on "specific intelligence inputs", but had not found any.
'Totally outnumbered'
An improvised explosive device detonated under an armoured vehicle just as the troops came under heavy fire from rebels positioned on a hillock, police officials said.
As the troops took cover behind the trees, they found that the rebels had booby trapped the trees with explosives. Troops in the open were gunned down by the rebels.
Police officials said that a vehicle accompanying a rescue team which rushed to the area to take away the dead and the injured was also blown up by an improvised explosive device, killing its driver.
"We were totally outnumbered. And they [rebels] had far too much ammunition. How could just 80 of us [soldiers] fight more than 1,000 of them? We got no time and no opportunity to retaliate," Pramod Kumar, a soldier who survived the ambush, told The Times of India newspaper.
The Maoists have stepped up attacks in recent weeks in response to a big government offensive along what is known as the "red corridor", a broad swathe of territory in rural eastern and central India where the Maoist rebellion has been gathering strength.
Nearly 50,000 federal paramilitary troops and tens of thousands of policemen are taking part in the operation in several states.
Thousands of people have died during the rebels' 20-year fight for communist rule.
The latest attacks come two days after rebels killed at least 10 policemen and injured 10 more in a landmine attack on a police bus in the eastern state of Orissa.
The rebels say they will step up attacks unless the government halts its offensive against them.
Mr Chidambaram has said troops will intensify the offensive if the rebels do not renounce violence and enter peace talks.
The Maoists want four senior leaders freed from jail and the offensive halted before any talks.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the Maoist insurgency as India's "greatest internal security challenge".
The Maoists say they are fighting for the rights of the rural poor who they say have been neglected by governments for decades.
BBC News - India minister Chidambaram reviews Maoist rebel attacks
Comment