Two Maoists, one policeman killed in India clashes

RAIPUR, India (Reuters) - Police shot dead two Maoist rebels in a gun battle in central India on Monday and a constable was killed in a separate ambush by insurgents on a security patrol, police said.

Both incidents took place in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, one of a dozen Indian states where Maoists control large swathes of mineral-rich forests and mountains.

Police said they recovered two bombs and a hand grenade from the site of the gun battle. About 50 insurgents armed with guns and knives had attacked a market, district police superintendent Ankit Garg told Reuters.

The violence came a day after about 50 Maoist rebels, several of them women, killed three people at a village market in a forest in Bastar, 450 km (280 miles) from the state capital Raipur.

Police say Maoists target civilians in the region who they accuse of being police sympathizers or informers.

Maoist rebels say they are fighting for the rights of poor farmers and landless laborers. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the Maoist insurgency as the gravest threat to India's internal security.

Thousands of people have been killed in the insurgency, which began in the late 1960s.

(Reporting by Sujeet Kumar; Editing by Matthias Williams and Alex Richardson)