Indian police in West Bengal state say they have arrested a senior Maoist rebel commander blamed for an attack on a security camp last month that left 24 people dead.
Police say they captured Venkateshar Reddy, also known as Telugu Deepak, in the state capital, Kolkata.
Deepak is a close associate of the Maoist leader known as Kishenji, who last week said his group was ready for peace talks with New Delhi. Kishenji also proposed a 72-day cease-fire if the Indian government halts the offensive against his group.
India's Home Minister P. Chidambaram said the government will not accept any preconditions for talks.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called the Maoist insurgency India's most serious internal security threat.
The rebels, known as Naxalites, have spread across nearly one-third of the country since 1967, when a peasant uprising became a wide-scale insurgency. They are mainly focused in central and eastern India.
During the past decade, officials say Maoist-linked violence has killed more than 600 people annually. The rebels have targeted security forces and infrastructure in their campaign to impose a communist system on areas they control.
Paramashish Ghosh Roy, VOA correspondent from Kolkata, has more on this.