New Delhi - Two people were killed in Maoist violence in IndiaÂ’s eastern state of Bihar on Sunday as the rebels went on a rampage and burned a dozen vehicles during the day-long strike to protest the recent arrest of their leaders, a news report said.Guerrillas belonging to the banned Communist Party of India burned 13 trucks and two buses in the southern Gaya district, the PTI news agency reported quoting official sources. The report said a policeman and a bus driver were killed in the cross-fire between the state police and armed rebels who had set fire to six trucks on a highway. The rebels also took away some passengers of a bus as cover for their escape but later released them, the PTI reported.
The rebels called a day-long strike in Bihar, neighbouring Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh states, to protest against the recent arrest of their leaders including the chief of northern states, Tushar Kant Bhattacharya. Bhattacharya, wanted in several criminal cases
Maoist rebels, who claim they are fighting for the rights of the rural poor and tribal people, operate in 13 of India’s 29 states along a “red corridor” stretching from the India-Nepal border in the north to Andhra Pradesh in the south.