But air power will be used for evacuation and for mobility of troops, said federal Home Secretary Gopal K. Pillai. "I don't think we need to use air power at the moment. We can manage with what we have. Our strategy is unfolding and we should be able to manage without air power."

Pillai was being interviewed on national television as thousands of mourners gathered around funeral pyres for many of the dead soldiers, victims of an ambush by upwards of 1,000 Maoist Naxalite rebels.

Only seven of the 82 soldiers survived the attack. The dead included a deputy commandant and an assistant commandant of the Central Reserve Police Force and a head constable of the state police force.

The soldiers were caught by surprise as they entered dense forest surrounded by fields just after dawn and less than 3 miles from their base camp. They found themselves amid an area of land mines and then were attacked by waves of Naxalites, according to one soldier who was interviewed by the Times of India newspaper.

"We were totally outnumbered," he said. "And they had far too much ammunition. How could just 80 of us fight more than 1,000 of them? We got no time and no opportunity to retaliate. I saw my mates drop one after another before my eyes."

The soldiers were members of the Central Reserve Police Force, a 61-year-old well-armed paramilitary security force that carries out many patrol duties in dangerous and often rebel-held territory. It is lightly armed and serves to back up regular police and security units.

The CRPF also has a reputation for toughness and some battalions have seen fighting in the India-Pakistan wars.

The ambushed CRPF group was taking part in Operation Green Hunt, an ongoing military offensive by 50,000 CRPF soldiers and tens of thousands of regular policemen. The offensive, India's biggest against the Maoists, was started last November by the central government of India to track down Naxalites within the so-called Red Corridor.

The area is an impoverished region in the east of India that takes in parts of the states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

Pillai said none of the CRPF soldiers had been captured by the Naxalites, often called Communist Party of India Maoists, or CPI Maoists. Pillai called the Maoists "murderers," saying the government's resolve was strengthened and it would continue to tackle the Maoist menace.

Home Minister P. Chidambaram said on national television that something must have gone "drastically" wrong in Chhattisgarh. "The casualty is very high and I am deeply shocked at the loss of lives. This shows the savage nature of CPI Maoists and their brutality and the savagery they are capable of."

Media reports say the Cabinet is meeting in the aftermath of the killings, one of the worst to have hit government forces, to reassess their strategy, but no other details have been given.

The Naxalites, one of the larger splinter rebel groups from India's legal Communist parties, have been fighting a low-level but sometimes deadly campaign against state and central governments since 1967.

They originated in the village of Naxalbari in West Bengal in India's remote forested and mineral-rich far eastern reaches. They demand more of the wealth from the resources be spread among the poor. Many of the landless general population support the Naxalites against what they see as a central government neglecting their basic living, education and health needs.

Upward of 6,000 people have died in Naxal attacks over the past two decades, the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs said. But since 2004 on average nearly 600 people have been killed each year, with a surge in deaths to 1,134 last year.

In October 2009, 17 policemen were killed in Gadchiroli in the state of Maharashtra bordering on Bengal when 200 Naxals opened fire on a police post in broad daylight.

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