Maoist rebels in eastern India killed six policemen and injured at least three others during a daylight ambush on a motorcycle team.

The dead and injured were among 16 police motorcyclists driving in a convoy about 25 miles from the city of Jagdalpur in the south of Chhattisgarh state, a report in The Times of India said.

The team was traveling on an interior road when it came under attack around 1 p.m.

"There was a land mine explosion followed by firing," said police superintendent Ratan Lal Dangi.

The policemen were returning from investigating an attack by suspected Maoists on a guesthouse and other buildings in the village of Netanar, he said.

Netanar lies on the northern fringe of Kanger Valley National Park, a forest reserve southwest of Jagdalpur and an area known to be infiltrated by Maoist groups.

"It could have been a trap. The Maoists demolished a forest rest house knowing that the police will come to the spot after the incident," a counterinsurgency officer told the BBC.

In November 2009, the federal government in New Delhi launched a major long-term offensive against the Maoists, sometimes called Naxalites. The rebels originated in the village of Naxalbari in West Bengal in India's remote forested and mineral-rich far eastern reaches in the 1960s.

The two-year Operation Green Hunt relies on up to 50,000 paramilitary forces and tens of thousands of civilian draftees being stationed in so-called "Naxal-infested areas" across five states -- West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa and Chhattisgarh.

The Maoists attempt to win the hearts and minds of the rural poor, who are often attracted to promises of a better life. Maoists demand more of the wealth from the natural resources be spread among the poor. Many of the landless general population support the Maoists against what they see as a central government neglecting their basic living, education and health needs

However, Maoists and the many splinter groups often show disregard for civilians, sometimes deliberately targeting them.

In May last year Maoist rebels killed 20 policemen and at least 20 civilians in the Dantewada district in the southern part of Chhattisgarh. The bus in which the people were traveling hit a mine planted in the road in the late afternoon.

The bus blast came a week after police discovered the bodies of six civilians in the state's Rajnandgaon district. All the dead had their throats cut, police said.

The Dantewada district was the scene of another deadly rebel attack in April last year when Maoists overran four security force camps killing 75 government militia members.