Calcutta, India, February 16, 2010 -- A stunning attack by Maoist rebels killed at least 24 police officers Monday in a remote camp in eastern India, a top Indian official said Tuesday. More than 100 guerrillas attacked the security outpost, detonating land mines, setting the facility ablaze, killing two dozen police and stealing weapons, said district magistrate N.S. Nigam. «Every attack of this kind exposes the true nature and character of the (Maoists),» Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said in a statement. «Their goal is to seize power. Their weapon is violence. No organization or group in a democratic republic has the right to take to violence to overpower the established legal authority.» The attack took place in Shilda village, about 105 miles (170 kilometers) southwest of state capital, Calcutta. A total of 51 police officers were in the camp at the time and many remained missing, the Press Trust of India news agency said. «Never before the police here have suffered so many losses in one attack,» Surajit Kar Purkayastha, a police inspector-general, told The Associated Press on Tuesday. --SPA 11:17 LOCAL TIME 08:17 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/748825