PATNA, India - Communist rebels attacked a tourist bus and blew up communication towers, rail tracks and a village council office in eastern India to protest an expected government crackdown on their activities, officials said Tuesday.
Suspected rebels hurled a crude bomb at the moving bus on Tuesday, causing minor injuries to eight people, said R.K. Malik, an inspector-general of police.
The insurgents fled after the attack on a highway near Isri, a village 240 kilometres south of Patna, the capital of Bihar state, Malik said.
Also Tuesday, the engine and 10 cars of a freight train derailed after the rebels blasted rail track in Jharkhand state, Malik said.
The overnight attacks in Bihar and Jharkhand states stranded trains for hours, and buses stayed off roads in rebel-controlled areas, but no one was reported hurt.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the rebels as India's biggest internal security threat, and his government plans a major offensive against them but has not said when it will begin. The rebels launched their two-day protest Monday, also in the states of Chhattisgarh, West Bengal and Orissa.
The rebels, who say they are inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, have been fighting for more than three decades in several Indian states, demanding land and jobs for agricultural labourers and the poor. They frequently target police and government officials, whom they accuse of colluding with landlords and rich farmers to exploit the poor.
Thousands of people, including police, militants and civilians, have died in the violence in recent years.
In one of the boldest attacks Monday night, nearly 100 suspected insurgents raided a village in Bihar's Munger district and used dynamite to blast the village council office, said Neelmani, additional director general of police. He uses one name.
They also blew up six mobile phone towers in Aurangabad and Gaya districts in the state, he said.
More than a dozen trains were stranded for more than eight hours after suspected rebels used explosives to blow up stretches of railroad tracks in Bihar and Jharkhand states, said Dilip Kumar Singh, a railroad official.
They also abducted six rail workers, but freed them hours later unharmed, Singh told The Associated Press.
On Monday, suspected rebels dug up roads and set three trucks on fire in Jharkhand state.
The rebels have stepped up attacks this year, killing about 250 police and paramilitary soldiers between January and August.
On Thursday, hundreds of rebels surrounded a police patrol in the western state of Maharashtra, killing at least 17 troops.
