Indian police 'kill 13 rebels'

Thirteen suspected Maoist rebels have been killed in clashes with the police in central India, officials say.

The two clashes happened in the state of Chhattisgarh late on Thursday, the police said.

The police said five Maoists, including three women, had been injured in the clashes and admitted to the hospital.

About 6,000 people have been killed in violence linked to the Maoist rebels in several southern and eastern states over the past 20 years.

Officials said that ten rebels were killed in an encounter near Deverpalli village in Dantewara district, the southern-most district of the state and a Maoist stronghold.

The police said the bodies of the rebels had been taken away by their associates.

Powerful force

In another incident, three rebels were killed in a clash with security forces near the border with neighbouring Jharkhand state.

On Tuesday, the police said some rebels had been wounded in a clash in the Bijapur area of Dantewara district.

But a villager lodged a complaint with the local police station saying that two people had been injured after some drunk policemen had opened fire on a group of villagers.

The militants are known as Naxalites after the district where their Maoist-inspired movement was born in the late 1960s.

They say they are fighting for the rights of indigenous people and the rural, landless poor.

They have become so powerful in some districts they run their own parallel administrations and justice systems, correspondents say.

In Chhattisgarh, the authorities have given tacit approval to a voluntary people's movement which stands up to the Maoists.