Seventy-nine Indian Maoist rebels have surrendered to authorities in the insurgency-racked central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, police said Thursday.The Maoists laid down their arms at a ceremony at police headquarters in Raipur, capital of Chhattisgarh, one of the Indian states worst hit by the leftist insurgency and home to many of India’s indigenous people, or ‘Adivasis’.
Chief Minister Raman Singh said the surrender late Wednesday was part of a new state government “surrender policy” aimed at bringing Maoists back into the political mainstream, and called it a major success in tackling the insurgency.
Some 356 people - security personnel, civilians and Maoists - died in 2006 in insurgency-related violence in mineral-rich Chhattisgarh, one of 15 out of IndiaÂ’s 29 states where the rebels are active, according to official figures. The rebels exert varying degrees of influence in around 165 of the countryÂ’s more than 600 administrative districts, according to intelligence estimates.