Activists of the regional Trinamool Congress hold placards while taking part in a rally to protest against the governments actions in Lalgarh, in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata June 22, 2009. Indias government on Monday banned and formally labelled Maoist insurgents a terrorist group, hoping it would give security forces more enforcement powers after the rebels briefly created a

NEW DELHI The Indian government has unleashed a grisly newspaper advertising campaign to counter the left-wing propaganda of deadly Maoist insurgents, a senior official said on Monday.

The first of the campaigns, featuring graphic photographs of people killed by the extremists, appeared Sunday in national newspapers with the tagline 'These are innocent people -- victims of Naxal (Maoist) violence'.

'More such advertisements will be issued in regional language papers in the next few days,' a home ministry official said.

'Besides this, there are some documentaries on Maoists that will be aired on state-run and private satellite channels,' he said.

'The Maoists are killing innocent people. The aim of the campaign is to create revulsion in the minds of people against these senseless killings.'

Last week Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rebuked police chiefs for failing to stem the Maoist insurgency, which he described as the greatest threat to Indias internal security.

The insurgency, which started as a peasant uprising in 1967, has spread to 20 of the countrys 29 states and claimed around 600 lives so far this year.

The rebels say they are fighting for the rights of neglected tribespeople and landless farmers, and are strongest in the impoverished east of India.

To counter questions about the authenticity of the photographs in the campaign, the home ministry supplied the names of the dead people, as well as the dates and places where they were killed.

The seven photographs published feature men, women and a four-year-old child.

Little is known about the Maoist movements shadowy leadership based in the dense forests of central Indias Chhattisgarh state, or its strength which is variously estimated at between 10,000 and 20,000 followers.

On Friday and Saturday, security forces launched a major offensive against a rebel stronghold in Chhattisgarh that left up to 30 Maoists dead for the loss of six government forces, local police told AFP Monday.