The dead policeman and six wounded were members of the Central Reserve Police Force, one of several government-organized militia engaged in fighting the increasingly active communist insurgents.

The wounded soldiers were airlifted to a local hospital.

The fighting took place in wooded hills in the West Singbhum district of Jharkhand state when security forces ambushed eight camps of the Maoists, also called Naxalites.

The CRPF, fighting alongside state police, recovered equipment and weapons after a gun battle that lasted nearly 24 hours. Armaments and other supplies captured included 20 claymore mines, 60 bags of ammonium nitrate, three containers of liquid explosive, three solar panels and more than 500 pounds of rice and fish, a CRPF officer said.

Last month 20 policemen and at least 20 civilians in the Dantewada district in the southern part of Chhattisgarh state were killed when the bus in which they were traveling hit a mine planted in the road.

Also last month more than 145 people were killed when a train crashed in West Bengal state after rebels allegedly sabotaged the track.

In April, 75 security forces were killed in an ambush by Naxalites in the eastern central state of Chhattisgarh.

An increasing number of clashes are being reported by Indian media after the federal government ramped up its fight against the Naxalites late last year.

The Naxal name comes from the village of Naxalbari in the state of West Bengal where the movement originated in the late 1960s.

Many Naxalites are members or former members of various legal communist splinter groups. They demand more of the wealth from the region's natural resources be spread among the mainly rural poor.

Their fight against central and state government control of many areas has been going on since the 1970s. Since 2004 on average of nearly 600 people have been killed each year.

But a surge in deaths to 1,134 in 2009 prompted the government to launch a concerted effort against the Naxalites.

Operation Green Hunt, an ongoing military offensive by 50,000 CRPF soldiers and tens of thousands of regular policemen started in November. The mission is to track down Naxalites within the so-called Red Corridor in eastern India.

The states of Chhattisgarh, Orissa and West Bengal are within the corridor.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the Maoist insurgency as India's biggest internal security challenge.

The government has entered into peace talks with several groups but with limited success. Despite an increasing frustration by central government, the military has held back from expanding their strategy against the Naxalites to include airstrikes.

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