BIJAPUR, (India): Twenty-two Indian police and paramilitary forces were killed and 30 others wounded in a gun battle with Maoist rebels in a central Indian state, police said Sunday, in the deadliest ambush of its kind in four years.

Some 2,000 security personnel were on the hunt for a Maoist rebel leader in Bijapur district in Chhattisgarh state on Saturday when they were ambushed, a police officer told AFP.