BHOPAL, Feb 28: Leftwing guerillas killed at least 23 anti-Maoist campaigners on Tuesday after ambushing a convoy of trucks ferrying the unarmed activists in central India, police said.

The massacre, the bloodiest in recent years in Chattisgarh state, came on the eve of a three-day visit by US President George W. Bush to India for talks on strategic ties and countering terrorism.

The rebels ambushed five trucks in Dantewada district. After blowing one up they torched the remaining four taking the anti-Maoist activists to their homes, Chattisgarh’s Legislative Affairs Minister Ajay Chandrakar said.

He said the injured were rushed to hospitals in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh state after the attack on the campaigners, who had gone to Chattisgarh’s Dornapal district to attend an anti-Maoist rally.

“We strongly condemn this attack which is the outcome of the growing frustration among the Maoists as they are being isolated following the success of the ongoing people’s movement against them,” Chandrakar said in the state capital Raipur.

“As per reports received so far, 23 people have died and 33 others were injured in the blast,” he said. The guerillas also apparently abducted an unspecified number of activists, Chandrakar said.

All those who died were travelling in a tipper truck which was blown up late morning at a village in the district’s Darbhaguda area, 550km south of Raipur, the minister added.—AFP