By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Dozens of heavily armed Maoist rebels stormed a bauxite mine in eastern India and held roughly 100 mine employees hostage before police regained control of the mine early Monday morning, authorities said.
At least eight police officers and four militants died in the nine-hour shootout in the Panchpatmali area of the state of Orissa, senior police official M.M. Praharaj told the CNN-IBN news channel.
Praharaj said the militants were hoping to steal large quantities of explosives used for mining, but they fled without them.
C.R. Pradhan, director of the mine company, National Aluminum Company Ltd., or NALCO, said the workers held inside the mine were not harmed, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.
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