Raipur, July 12 - Maoists Sunday struck thrice in their stronghold in Chhattisgarh, killing at least 29 policemen, including a district superintendent of police, in landmine attacks followed by indiscriminate firing.

All three attacks took place in the Manpur belt, some 200 km from here, in the Rajnandgaon district, bordering Maharashtra state.

'A contingent of the District Force (DF) and Chhattisgarh Armed Force (CAF) drove into a booby trap laid by Maoists in a thickly forested area in Rajnandgaon district, in which 25 jawans were killed,' Girdhari Nayak, additional director general of police, told IANS.

Insurgents killed at least four policemen in two other separate attacks while a few policemen are reported to be missing.

Rajnandgaon District Superintendent of Police (SP) Binod Kumar Choubey was among the victims. This is for the first time in over three decades of Maoist militancy in Chhattisgarh that a police official of this high rank was killed by the radical Leftists.

'Over 200 heavily armed cadres of the CPI-Maoist's People's Liberation Guerilla Army (PLGA) first attacked the SP's convoy comprising about 100 policemen with powerful land mines and then opened indiscriminate firing,' a police officer based at Rajnandgaon said by telephone.