The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Raipur

Nearly 300 communist rebel supporters escaped from a jail in eastern India in a dramatic mass breakout on Sunday, police said.

Some 299 prisoners fled the jail in Chhattisgarh, a hotbed of Maoist insurgency, after overpowering their guards during a meal.

"It was a premeditated conspiracy," local police official Rahul Sharma told AFP by telephone from Dantewada town.

More than half of the jail's 377 inmates escaped, Sharma said, describing the prisoners as sympathisers of the Maoist rebels. He said police reinforcements had reached the jail on the outskirts of Dantewada town, south of the state capital Raipur, and were searching for the escapees.

The Maoist insurgency, which grew out of a peasant uprising in eastern India in 1967, threatens huge swathes of India's centre, east and south and has spread to half of India's 29 states.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described it as the single biggest threat to India's internal security.

The Maoists say they are fighting for the rights of neglected tribal people and landless farmers.