Police yesterday said that dozens of Maoist guerrillas had been killed in jungle raids in India's remote interior by commandos fighting the country's longest-running conflict.

Ambushes on rebel camps over the past two days in forest deep inside the western state of Maharashtra have left at least 37 fighters dead, police said.

In the latest raid six guerrillas, including four women, were killed in a shootout late Monday in Gadchiroli district, Maharashtra state's head of anti-Maoist operations Sharad Shelar told AFP.

On Sunday special commandos had surrounded a rebel camp in forests within the same district and fought approximately 100 guerillas, police said. Sixteen bodies were recovered from the scene, but police later pulled another 15 corpses from the nearby Indravati River of fighters they said had drowned or succumbed to injuries.

Many of the slain rebels were women, police said.

India's Maoist insurgency began in the 1960s. Thousands of armed men and women -- also known as Naxals -- claim to be fighting for the rights of the indigenous tribal people, including the right to land, resources and jobs.

The Maoists are believed to be present in at least 20 Indian states but are most active in forested resource-rich areas in the states of Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand and Maharashtra.