New Delhi:
A survivor of one of the worst guerrilla attacks in India's long-running Maoist insurgency said on Sunday that the security force guarding the ambushed convoy of top state political leaders in Chhattisgarh state was outnumbered and outgunned during an hourlong firefight.
The police officers assigned to protect the convoy ran out of ammunition during the assault on Saturday, said one of the dozens of survivors, Vivek Bajpai, a businessman and a member of the Indian National Congress Party. With the convoy's guards unable to return fire, 200 to 300 guerrillas emerged from the forest and demanded that the survivors tell them where Mahender Karma and Nand Kumar Patel, both top Congress Party leaders, were hiding. When the guerrillas found Karma they killed him, Mr Bajpai said.
"I didn't see the killing, but I heard his cries," Mr Bajpai, 42, said. "They beat him with rifle butts and shot him many times. And then they celebrated his death, danced near his body, fired celebratory shots in the air and shouted slogans like 'The enemy is killed.' We thought our turn was coming next."
The attackers killed 24 people - eight police officers and 16 civilians, including Mr Karma and Mr Patel - and wounded 37, said Mukesh Gupta, senior police officer. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, president of the Congress, flew to Chhattisgarh on Sunday to visit the wounded, console the grieving and condemn the attackers.
"We will pursue the perpetrators of this crime with urgency, and I can assure the nation that the government is committed to bringing them to justice," Dr Singh said.
Rahul Gandhi, the Congress Party vice president, said the attackers hoped to intimidate the party, but that they would not succeed.
"We are not scared," Mr Gandhi said in Chhattisgarh. "We will not run away."
The attack began with the detonation of a bomb, which forced the vehicles to stop, and continued with a barrage of automatic-weapons fire, Mr Bajpai said.
"Many of the Maoists were young girls, maybe 20 to 25 years old," Mr Bajpai said. The guerrillas, inspired by the Chinese Communist revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, have been demanding land for tenant farmers and jobs for the poor for decades. The rebels are estimated to have thousands of fighters and a significant presence in at least six states.
Mr Karma had long been a target of their anger because he founded Salwa Judum, a local militia organized to combat the guerrillas that has been accused of atrocities against the local tribal population. Such tribal groups are among India's most marginalized citizens and constitute the backbone of the Maoist insurgency in the eastern middle of the country.
After the killings, the Maoists scolded the survivors for challenging their authority by moving through an area under guerrilla control. They ordered several survivors to put out a fire caused by grenade blasts.
"They said that they were Adivasis and did not want to damage the forest," Mr Bajpai said. "Slowly, they started moving toward the jungle and left us behind."
The Adivasis are tribal people who consider themselves the first residents of India.
A newspaper photographer was the first person on the scene after the attack, Mr Bajpai said. Later, a contingent of local police officers arrived and took the survivors to Jagdalpur.
© 2013, The New York Times News Service