Maoist rebels fired at a police patrol guarding a shopping area in eastern India over the weekend, killing four officers, authorities said Monday. The attackers escaped into a nearby forest as two other police officers chased them and exchanged gunfire in Gidhni, a small town nearly 110 miles (180 kilometers) southwest of Calcutta, the capital of West Bengal state, said Noman Hossain, a police officer. The rebels took away the rifles of the slain police officers, Hossain told The Associated Press. The Communist Party of India (Maoist), a key rebel group in the region, claimed responsibility for the killings, the Press Trust of India news agency said.
