30 feared dead in Maoist attack

Maoist guerrillas blow up bus near Dantewada. 50-odd security personnel were travelling in the bus

Maoist guerrillas blew up a bus in a forested stretch of Chhattisgarh on Monday, killing 20-30 civilians and special police officers (SPOs), police sources and locals said.

The bus was ripped apart by a powerful landmine as it made its way on the Dantewada-Sukma Road in Dantewada district, about 450 km south of Raipur, locals who rushed to the site said.

"The bus has been completely destroyed. There is a 10-feet deep crater," one of the locals told IANS. "We can see 20 to 30 bodies. They are lying all around the site."

But Chhattisgarh Special Director General of Police Vijay Raman told NDTV news channel that up to 50 people had been killed in the deadly attack.

The dead included civilians and SPOs drawn from the local community, police source said.

It was the worst attack blamed on Maoist guerrillas since 76 security personnel were slaughtered, also in Dantewada district, April 6. All but one then were from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).

In New Delhi, U.K. Bansal, Special Secretary for Internal Security in the home ministry, told Times Now channel that casualtiies "can be pretty heavy" in Monday's strike.

He said the people in the bus were "partly civilians and partly SPOs. It's extremely unfortunate, a dastardly attack".

"The Naxalites (Maoists) are now taking on innocent civilians," Chhattisgarh Home Minister Nankiram Kanwar said.

The latest attack prompted a meeting between Home Minister P Chidambaram and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi.